Growing Pains
by HM Grayson
Summary: It wasn't turning into a werewolf that bothered Levi Black. It was having his parents read his mind. JxL. NextGenFic.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Twilight doesn't belong to me. I'm tired of thinking of humorous ways of saying that.

Author's Note: Since this is not going to be a short story here's some more of what you might want to know. This is how I've decided to imagine the second generation of werewolves, emphasis on the anger issues and the puberty. If you don't like OCs then turn back now because while I intended to focus more on the parents, the kids take over as the story goes on. Jacob/Leah is my obvious deviation from canon (as might be expected when Jacobleah is the reviewer who inspired this). I'm using a story I wrote called _For These Ones _as the sort of bridge from the books to this, but you don't need to read that; just know that Jacob and Leah are together for this. And they have children. The story also gets more serious as we go along but never too serious.

Warning: I cleaned up this character's language a lot so I could rate this T but he gets away from me sometimes. Still, just assume Levi is telling his story, but Dinah's the one writing it down. That's the canon reason why certain words are obviously less strong than they would be. And since you don't know who those people are why don't I just shut up and get on with it? Okay.

Growing Pains

* * *

All I wanted for my seventeenth birthday was a car. It didn't have to be good car; I was so desperate I would have taken any piece of crap machine Dad could salvage from his shop.

Instead I got a talk. This talk was even worse than the talk Mom had given me when I was fourteen where she had detailed all the ways she would ruin my life if I was ever disrespectful to the girls I found myself having 'urges' about, before she rolled her eyes and said the urges were natural and I should never _ever _attempt to satisfy them in her house. It was the most embarrassing, awkward moment of my life—and it was still less awful than the talk Dad gave me on my seventeenth birthday.

_Son, you're a werewolf._

_Geez, thanks Dad. I never would have figured that out even though I HAVE CLAWS NOW._

Perhaps it wasn't my most mature moment.

* * *

Having lived on the rez my whole life, where everyone was related to everyone else and there was nothing to do but talk about each other all day, I was used to people knowing my business. So it didn't surprise me when Will showed up, even though my cousin was the last person I wanted to see after finding out I had turned into a four-legged monster.

The thing about Will is...he's a dick. And that's the nice way of putting it. On the list of people I wanted seeing me with fur he was below even Marlena Call who has the greatest tits in the fine state of Washington.

"You look damn stupid like that," he said. "And you've got orange fur. You look like a giant freaking pumpkin."

I growled. I was doing that a lot since I had turned into a werewolf that morning.

_Why the hell is he here? _I asked Dad. Since he wasn't too fond of Uncle Paul, he usually understood my irritation with the man's son. That day he just told me to wait a second.

Then Will took off his clothes and turned into a wolf too.

_You didn't tell me you were a werewolf?_ I demanded.

Asshole.

_I didn't want you to try sending me to rehab, loser. So no, I didn't tell you I was a werewolf._

_Is there anyone else around here who's a werewolf that I should know about? _I asked the enormous bear-like russet creature that was supposed to be my father (even though Dad hadn't turned into a gigantic wolf my whole life…except apparently he had).

_That's a good question, Levi._

_That wasn't you answering, Dad._

_Well, you see..._

_Everyone's a werewolf,_ Will said helpfully. Dad didn't correct him.

_Everyone?_

Dad basically went through every friend he had, plus Brian Uley, which was just going to be awkward. Will decided to be helpful, the way only Will could.

_Including the father of the girl you think about when you jack off._ Did I mention Will was evil? He just kept laughing. _Oh, and being a werewolf means he can read your mind. And so can your dad._

Well, that was going to get awkward.

* * *

_There's one more person, _Dad said. Like it could possibly get any worse—maybe it would be Marlena herself.

_Then you'd at least get to see her naked instead of just stalking her like—_

_Does he have to be here for this?_ I interrupted. _Because he is not helping._

_Yes, he is_, Dad said. I felt myself agreeing just because Dad said it. The last time that had happened I had been eight. Mom said it was because I was just going through a phase where I couldn't help being a jackass. My mother was all heart.

_There was no one else our age when it happened to me_, Will said, like I was supposed to feel sorry for him. Guess I did. In a way. There was something reassuring about having Will around, even though I couldn't help wishing he would be nice for just once in his life.

_Just shut up_, I told him. For the first time ever Will listened to me. It wasn't natural. Neither was turning into a werewolf so I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised. _Now, who else can read my mind?_

_Your mother._

_Funny Will. Who is it?_

This time it was Dad who said: _Your mother._

* * *

I didn't handle that maturely either.

* * *

It took me a week to learn enough control so I could phase back. It had taken Will three weeks—so that's where the loser had gone and why no one had cared; I probably should apologize for screaming that my parents were unfeeling assholes—so I felt pretty good about it. I had even beaten Brian (it had taken him thirteen days) and boy was a pansy ass do-gooder.

Damn. I wasn't supposed to think that sort of stuff anymore. He could read my mind.

The way my mother could.

Dad had kept her and most of the others out of my head the past week. Most of the guys he had listed had once been werewolves, but they were long retired. There were only a couple of them left anymore. Mom, Dad, Uncle Seth, Embry and Quil, Sam, Uncle Paul and some guy called Max. I could remember that.

Uncle Seth had stopped in and so had Uncle Paul (mostly to drag Will home, but still) though the rest of them left me alone. It was better this way, Dad said—that way I could concentrate on myself instead of the incoming army.

Whatever.

I just wanted to go home and get a decent meal. Raw meat sucked.

_You're pickier than your mother,_ Dad complained. But I could tell he was eager to get home, too. It was creepy as hell, being able to read my father's mind. At least he hadn't thought about Mom—

It was amazing how quickly he could phase back. A little weird, because I was suddenly seeing a lot of Dad naked and that would never not be creepy, but there was nothing we could do about that. As a werewolf I had to get used to weird. Plus, it sounded like I was going to be naked a lot.

Around Mom, as Will liked to point out.

"Can you hear that?" Dad asked after we were dressed and standing on our front porch. "Guess where your mother is."

"In your bedroom. Going through drawers."

"You're learning fast," Dad said. It was kind of nice, having him grinning all proudly. Things had been kind of lousy between us lately—even before he had refused to buy me a car he had been kind of a jerk—so it was kind of cool that this werewolf thing had him being slightly less of an overbearing asshole.

"She's walking down the hall now."

"I guess she heard us," Dad said, just as the door flew open.

Mom regarded me the same way she always did, totally unimpressed. Her eyes looked a little mistier than usual, which is why I had to say something.

"Hey, Mom. Just found out you're a real bitch."

The growl Dad made promised me a world of pain. It was worth it though.

"You're not funny," Mom declared. Yes I was. "And Jake? No growling at your son."

Ha!

"He's also a member of our pack," he protested. "Now get inside, boy. And don't talk to your mother that way."

So I did what I usually did. I flipped them off, grumbled under my breath, then did what Dad said because, you know, he was my dad and everything.

"Glad to have you back, Levi," Mom called after me. Mom's always been good with the sarcasm and today was no exception. Mom could make people bleed with just her words.

At least she had a good spread laid out. Mom was a killer cook.

"Where's Judy?" I asked. My older sister, Dinah, was off at school, but the pain-in-the-ass sometimes known as my younger sibling should have still been at home. I had been gone for a week; it would have been nice if someone pretended they had missed me.

"She's with your aunt."

Crap. Judy was like the only kid on the planet Will tolerated, for the sole reason that she could help him plan all sorts of evil things to do to me. When she got home I was going to have to fear for my life (or maybe I'd just get to test out the extent of my werewolf superpowers a bit earlier than I had expected). It's not like my parents would stop her. Most people thought my sister was the sweetest little girl ever, failing to notice that she was really the evilest human being ever known to walk the face of the earth. Actually. I had tried to perform an exorcism as kid, but Mom had made me stop.

"So it's just the three of us? Joy."

My parents rolled their eyes in unison. They did a lot of things together like that. I had always found it kind of creepy, in a they-MUST-be-pod-people kind of way, and it was still creepy even though now I had a reason.

"So you two are the Alpha pair, huh? That means I'm for sure going to get to be in control when Dad kicks the bucket, right?"

"Over my dead body," my mother promised. She was laughing, a little. "That's the general idea."

"The power mad thing is your fault, Leah."

"And probably the attitude, too."

"Nah. You were never as bad as that. No one was ever as bad as _that_."

"Sitting right here," I muttered, not that my parents cared. Though they looked surprised, for a second. "Hey! All those times Judy would swear you guys were muttering to yourselves—you were?"

"Sorry," Dad said. Mom only shrugged, "It's going to be a pain to remember to stop now."

"Sorry me turning into a giant freaking monster is inconveniencing you," I snarled.

"Down, Levi," Dad commanded. "Calm down."

I don't know how I managed—Mom had already grabbed the good dishes off the table in case I phased and destroyed the spread—but somehow I didn't phase. I guess I really was getting better at the werewolf thing.

"So you two have been talking about us in front of our faces all these years. Anything else I should know about?"

Mom answered seriously: "We...we don't go on nearly as many trips for work as we say."

"So what were you guys doing when you'd disappear all the time?"

Not that I ever cared that my parents would take random trips at the drop of the hat, even though Dinah always said it was suspicious and for years Judy couldn't sleep when they were gone unless I let her stay with me. While Dinah believed they were off on business (even if she suspected some sort of gang stuff), I had always thought they were just blowing us off. The three of us could get kind of annoying.

"We hunt vampires."

"Yeah, Dad. That's just what I was going to guess."

"I'm serious, Levi. We kill vampires. When we'd go off...we were tracking down vampires. That's why we always hated leaving."

Mom always made sure to give us five kisses each (cheek, cheek, nose, forehead and one more on the nose for good luck, we always chanted with her) and Dad always made me promise I knew where his will and stuff were before he left. I thought it was them being paranoid, even though I never really thought of my parents as the over-protective types. Sure, they were annoying and nosy, but they usually didn't worry about us. They knew that we could take care of ourselves.

"You...you could have gotten hurt?"

"We're tough," Dad promised. Otherwise known as a yes. Shit.

"That's why you phased," Mom explained. "What with the pack a lot smaller than it used to be, when the vampires came near the town it triggered the three of you boys."

"There are vampires nearby?" Maybe I should have been scared, but I was just kind of excited. They might not let me fight Will just yet, but they'd let me fight the vamps I could already tell.

"We took care of that already," Dad said. "I'm just sorry that we couldn't get them before they got to you."

"Is it that bad being a werewolf?"

They looked at each other then, like they were waiting for the other to answer. Or maybe they were trying to figure out the answer using their telepathy. My parents were kind of co-dependent. Sometimes, when they were in really weird moods, they could practically finish each other's sentences.

"Your brothers will make it worth it," Dad said finally. "And you'll be keeping people safe this way. Keeping your sisters safe."

But I didn't want to keep them safe. It wasn't fair—Dinah was older and Judy was more annoying. Just because I was a guy didn't mean I should have to put up with having Will in my head. But it's not like my parents had a choice about whether I became a werewolf or not. They probably would have picked Dinah, if they could.

So since we were stuck with each other, I sucked it up.

"So you're the only girl?" I asked Mom.

"Yeah. We never did figure that one out."

"Is there _anything _you guys did figure out?"

Dad was glowering at me again, but Mom was just gazing at me with that look on her face. She didn't get it often, but I hated when she did. It always made me feel like crap. With tears half in her eyes, she got up and came over, putting her arms right around my shaking body.

"We're glad you're home, Levi. I know it's hard, but we're glad you're home."

Mom wasn't so bad, sometimes.

"Me too," I muttered.

Then Dad handed me more potatoes so I guess he was all right too.

To Be Continued...


	2. Chapter 2

_So this is a patrol, huh? Kind of boring._

My mother burst out laughing. Laughing at me, not with me, I'd like to make clear.

_Kind of really boring_, she agreed._ But necessary. And there are ways of making them more fun._

_Leah,_ Dad growled. _Is that really—_

_Jake! Shut up, okay? I'm trying to organize a race with my son. _

_She's just doing this so she can beat you too,_ Dad said. Thought. Whatever. I wasn't really sure how that worked. I just knew it was awkward as hell (every time I ran past Marlena's house my mother phased back just so she wouldn't have to deal).

_You're fast?_

_The fastest. Your father might be stronger and bigger—_

_And smarter and better looking—_

_Your father might live in his little fantasy world, but I am by far the fastest thing on this planet._

_Prove it,_ I said. _Last one to the clearing has to buy me a car!_

_Please, Levi. You're just going to embarrass yourself._

Dad was right. I did embarrass myself. I had been the closest by far and my parents still kicked my ass—and I think my mom was going faster than light at some points. It kind of blew monkey nuts.

_You know, good parents would have let their kid win,_ I complained.

They just laughed. It was kind of nice. Not that I was over the years they had spent ruining my life with their stupid rules and their dumb orders, but, you know, they weren't completely awful.

_Thanks, Levi. That was touching._

_He really is the sweetest child._

_Oh, you two screw off._

And that was how I accidentally found out I had been conceived in a forest—which, needless to say, was information I could have survived not knowing FOR THE REST OF MY DAMN LIFE.

* * *

"You look awful."

Whoever invented fourteen year old sisters should die. Slowly.

"Go away, Jubes."

Bet you she was conceived in a forest, too; next patrol I might find out if she really was the accident I always called her.

"Will promised to let me drive his car, next time."

"Pick up his bad habits, if you want. I don't care."

There was no way that loser was teaching _my_ little sister to drive. I would kill him first and he knew it. He was just trying to mess with me.

"Mom said you were in a bad mood." She sat down beside me on the couch, feet curled up in front of her, toes against my leg. Her feet were freezing so I got a pillow and covered them up as she said, "You feel hot."

"I'm sick." That's what my parents were telling the rez.

"Oh." Judy smirked. "I thought it was because you were a werewolf."

Kid had evil powers. I called it years ago, but no one would believe me.

"Will?"

"Uncle Paul. Dad was acting pretty pissed, but I think he and Mom are actually pretty happy someone told me. I think they're going to tell Dinah, too, when she comes home for Christmas." She leaned over, ruffling my hair.

"Cut it out."

"Feels a lot different short."

"I feel like a freak."

"You are a freak."

"Go away, Judy." She just leaned her head against the couch, looking so annoying I had to say something. "So...what do you think, now that you know werewolves exist?"

"How come you get to be one and I don't?"

Little sisters—dumb as rocks.

"It's not all that it's cracked up to be. I have to have Brian in my head all the time. He's just as mopey as Dinah always said." She giggled. She had moments, though they were very rare, where she looked more cute than evil. That's why I threw my arm around her shoulders. "And now I can smell just how bad it is in my room and it's killing me."

"Mom told you so."

"Yeah, yeah."

* * *

The worst part of being a werewolf was not, it turned out, having to run patrols at the weirdest times of the week because I was the most recent to phase, so everyone dumped the lousy shifts on me. Nor was it having my social life completely destroyed because at least Marlena had finally noticed me now that I had arms the size of bowling balls and abs of titanium. Nor was it having to spend all my free time with Will because I had done that before voluntarily (I swear my mom had dropped me on my head when I was a kid), or Brian, because the guy was kind of all right after you got him to loosen up a bit. Nor was it having to hang out with some of my father's friends, because they were pretty damn funny if, you know, kind of ancient even if they didn't look it.

It wasn't even that I kept accidentally tearing all my clothes to pieces because I wasn't big on most of the stuff I owned, anyway. And I looked damn good naked now.

It was coming home after hanging out by the beach all night to find my house smelt like...

I don't want to talk about what it smelt like, actually.

"What the hell!"

I may have sounded kind of like a hysterical chick at that moment but I didn't even care that my voice was cracking.

"You said you were going to crash at Will's," Mom said like this was my fault. They had heard me coming with time to spare, but there was no getting rid of that tell-a-tale smell. I was considering cutting my nose off just then.

"So you two just..." My poor brain. "Judy..."

"Is at a sleepover," Dad said. Waste of his breath. I could already tell she wasn't here. The smell that usually told me she was hanging around—like pears and bubble gum and things that were way too sweet to be good for anyone—was missing. My poor nose was getting better.

Unfortunately.

"Ugh."

"It'll air out by morning," Mom said. "Levi—"

"Crap, you two. Can't you just...get separate rooms or something?"

Dad laughed. He didn't even pretend he wasn't, like Mom. I always knew she loved me better. "We're sorry, kid. We are. But we had to put up with you for years so you can just get used to it."

"What?"

I felt a bit like the dude at the end of a horror movie, who after surviving all the psycho stuff, had something fly out at him from the closet he knew was empty.

"Nothing," Mom said. "Why don't you just—"

"What did you mean?" I asked my father. He wasn't laughing now. Mom's glare had something to do with that I was sure. Mom's glare had a lot to do with lots of things in our house.

"Nothing."

"Go for a run," Mom said. "Seth and I used to do that when Charlie—"

I interrupted her horror story (she was not going to defile Grandma Sue; I wouldn't let her) with my own lousy realization.

"You guys could tell when I...?"

They deflated together. A lot of words that I couldn't say in front of my parent's summed up my feelings.

"You would listen when I...?"

"We'd sneak out on those nights."

Will was going to laugh until he pissed himself when he found out my parents had to listen to me jerk off. Then I was going to laugh at him because his dad had to do the same. And there was no way Uncle Paul was as calm about it as my parents.

"So you guys know...?"

"About you and that little Makah slut?"

Mom did not seem happy. Then again, she never did. She wasn't naturally a happy person around me.

"Why don't we not have this conversation?" Dad said, proving he really was a good guy. "We can all hear and smell things we'd much rather not. And we don't have to discuss it. Ever."

"Agreed," I said quickly.

Mom rolled her eyes, but agreed too. Then she told me to go stay with Uncle Seth for the night.

"Can I at least have the car?"

"He gets his brains from you, Jake."

"Run."

Dad was all heart.

* * *

My Uncle Seth was the greatest and not just because he had turned being a hobo into an art form, though that was part of it. When he was in town he worked a steady job because Grandma would have killed him otherwise, but that was as close to normal as he got. He didn't really live anywhere, just showed up and slept on our couch a lot. Then he'd take off for months at a time and come back with new scars and whole lot of presents and stories everyone knew were true even if they sounded like lies because that was just Uncle Seth for you. When he wasn't on someone's couch he was holed up in this abandoned mansion in the middle of the forest.

House sitting, he called it.

Whatever.

Though before I became a werewolf I never noticed how much the place stunk. Not just like my room, which was a combination of mould and a decade of body odour, but something that repelled me right in the gut.

"Your mom called," he said when I walked in. He was alone, which was a shame. While he tended to date the ugliest chicks in Forks, sometimes if I caught him without warning he'd pull these supermodels out of nowhere. This one blonde had to be the hottest chick I had ever met—she had scowled the whole time and was a total stuck up cow, but she had a rack that had to be seen to be believed. And the rest of her was pretty fantastic too.

"I need new parents," I confided.

He let me take a beer out of the fridge. Will always said it was because he forgot how old we were, which...maybe. Maybe not. Seth was sometimes hard to find, but he never missed a birthday. He just didn't like making a big deal out of things (also known as the exact opposite of my parents).

Of course he made me get one for him, too, because they were his. The food was all his though I don't think anything else was. We were only ever allowed in the kitchen and the main room. That's why we ended up drinking against the island in the kitchen.

"I happen to like your parents," he said eventually.

"Even when they..." Ugh. I couldn't even finish the sentence.

"Even then. Well, not really then, but after I like them again okay. Besides, who would I replace them with?"

"I'm going to be Alpha."

Uncle Seth laughed in my face. "Sure, Levi. Hold your breath until it happens, okay?"

"You don't think I can do it?"

"Not yet—it took your Dad almost a year to work up to it and those were pretty desperate circumstances. One day you'll be good. And until then learn to breathe through your mouth."

"As long as I don't have to watch the replay in their heads."

"They're pretty great at keeping stuff private." Uncle Seth laughed again, taking another sip. "And I thought I had it bad, sharing thoughts with my sister. You win."

"If Di or Judy phases I will kill myself." I'd have no other option. Before their epic breakup, Dinah and Brian had been way too close for my liking—and I NEVER wanted to know about that.

"Good to know."

* * *

But even with the way too much information it was kind of cool being a werewolf. For the first time in my life I was good—no, I was GREAT—at something. After spending my life being not as good as Dinah (it did not help that we were so close in age most people thought it was biologically impossible for us to be siblings), it was pretty epic finally getting to be the expert at something.

I got faster and quickly, too. Pretty soon I was faster than most of the old timers and a hell of a lot faster than Will and Brian (not that beating them was hard). I was strong, too. I finally was decidedly taller than my mom and I was catching up to my dad.

When I managed to piss Embry Call off enough to attack me (saying his daughter had a great ass was a _compliment_, as was the rest of the stuff I was thinking about doing to her) I even managed hold him for a while and the guy had twenty years of experience on me. He was a bit of a pansy fighter, but still. I was on my way up.

When it was just the three of us guys, we usually went hunting together. Since Will had been the first to phase (at nineteen, he was the oldest, even if he was the least mature) at first he was the one in charge, but I quickly weaseled my way into the position. They were going to be _my_ wingmen.

Brian was pretty chill with all this. He wasn't as bad as I had always thought—it was Brian who convinced my dad to let us 'audition' for a hunt, so to speak. Even though he didn't look it, he was just as impatient as Will and I to get to the damn good stuff.

The game was simple—we had to hunt and track Quil Atera. Once we caught him, we could then proceed to take down the three closest deer. We were not under any circumstances, as Dad reminded us all a thousand times, to try to dismember Quil. If we did so we would find ourselves buried in the local cemetery.

Will had a bit of a problem with that one, in the heat of the moment, but when we were wolves Will listened to me, so I was able to call him off in him in time. The take downs were perfect. Even before I let Brian finish off the last deer, I knew we were in.

The next time the vampires came to town they were going to have three new pains in the ass to deal with.

I was so stoked.

The only problem was the vampires didn't bother to show up.

Instead I had to deal with problems that I couldn't tear to pieces with me teeth.

* * *

There was something bothering Will, but asking about it just wasn't our style. I was planning to beat it out of him soon though because he was driving me crazy. The last time anything bothered Will was the time his parents threatened to break up when he was eleven (after that he just got used to them).

"Let's just get out of here, man," I said eventually. "See if Brian wants to go for a run."

Will just shrugged. Will being quiet was one of the five signs of the apocalypse (I looked it up once), so it was no wonder I was worried. It was also annoying, so I just asked: "What the hell is your problem?"

"I imprinted yesterday."

Imprinted? It took me a second to remember the strange tradition among werewolves, where you fell in love at first sight with some random chick (or in friendship, my mother had made sure to add, which...whatever). My parents had said not to worry too much about it and the other old men seemed happy enough with the whole situation. As long as I didn't imprint on a child—then I would probably freak. No matter what the old timers said, that was just weird.

"On who?" I asked, running through a list of girls on the rez. Since my sisters were his cousins, Will imprinting could only be funny. Maybe he picked a little girl or maybe someone hideous or maybe someone way old or—

"Do you look guilty?"

"No," Will muttered. "Of course not."

A rather bizarre thought struck me. Just because Dinah and Judith were related to Will...

"If you imprinted on my mom—"

"Shut up, asshole. It's not your freaking mother."

"Then who the hell is it?"

"Levi—"

Then I finally figured it out.

"You son of a—!"

When I phased he phased and we met somewhere in the middle of Aunt Rachel's living room. She was going to kill us, but I didn't care about that. I just wanted to rip his head off. The two-faced son of a bitch. I had only been obsessing over Marlena for _months_.

He did have a few weeks more experience than me, but I was bigger now and I was the one who was pissed. It didn't help I could see her in his head, even more perfect than I remembered, with her long dark hair and her big dark eyes and her perfect curves.

And Will was in love with her. My cousin who never liked anybody was totally in love with _my_ girl.

"What the hell are you doing to my house?"

Then Uncle Paul was in our heads. Most of the stuff he said to us was really rude. The rest of it was so creative we kind of didn't mind. Once he had finished screaming at us he ordered us to phase back. Then he said he was going to make us pay for all the damage and kicked us out of Aunt Rachel's house.

With the scraps of our clothing and nothing else.

"This sucks," Will said as we started walking towards my house.

"Shut up, jerkwad. This is your fault."

"It's not like I wanted to imprint on her."

True. When I started waxing poetic about her Will maintained that Marley was dim and dull and far too quiet for me. In his own way (where he refused to do anything that might give away how he was the smartest guy I knew) Will was ambitious. She wasn't. Imprinting on Marley meant Will was going to have to stick around the rez for the rest of his life. And probably stop half the stuff he did to make money. I couldn't see Marlena being okay with something that could get him thrown in jail.

"Shut up, Will."

"Fine. I'll stop imprinting on her."

"It doesn't work that way, idiot."

"Whatever."

We passed Grandpa Billy, who just sighed and told us he was told too old to deal with us and let us keep walking along. Then we passed Collin and Brady who sighed and told us to hurry up before too many more people saw. Then we some this guy from school who ran his mouth a bit too much, so I grabbed Will and dragged him away because I didn't want him to hit anyone right then.

"You're an idiot," I said as we finally neared my house.

"I know. I wish I could have imprinted on just about anyone else. Besides your mom, of course."

"My mom would have been better. Dad would have killed you and I wouldn't have to put up with your stupid mug anymore."

"He wouldn't have." Then he reverted to normal Will mode. "I take it back. I would have rather imprinted on your mom. She's hotter."

"Asshole. She's your aunt."

"By marriage."

I started calling him more creative names.

But I was laughing just a bit. Not because Will was funny or anything, but just because laughing was sort of what we did when it was just the two of us. By the time we got to the house I didn't care who he had imprinted on—except for thinking about how funny it would be pissing him off with all those fantasies. I had to do something with my collection, after all.

From the noise coming from the inside, the television on some dumb teen show, I knew to shout through the door, "Close your eyes, kid, will you?"

"What?" my stupid sister screamed back, not caring that we had to get inside and dressed before Mom found us or we would die.

"Just close your damn eyes."

"Please, Judy. Just listen him."

"Why?" But her voice was muffled by her hands. Excellent.

It was still kind of creepy sneaking through my house with only a rag covering me, ass hanging out, while my little sister was sitting on the couch. Hanging around my naked mother was where I drew the line. Not that I should be punished for the situation—it was all Will's fault.

"What happened?" Judy asked when we came out of my room. I was feeling nice, so I let Will borrow a pair of pants. "What did you do to his face, Levi?"

"Nothing he didn't deserve," I said as I settled down beside her. It was my couch after all. Will had to sit across from us.

"I imprinted on Marlena."

"Oh. Ew."

I had to say: "Shut up, Jubes."

"I thought she had a boyfriend?"

Will snorted. I said, "Not that he'll let it stop him."

"Guy's a loser."

"So are you."

"True. But I'm better looking."

I didn't say anything. I still had to get over having all my days of fantasizing go to waste. This wolf thing sucked.


	3. Chapter 3

_Hate is easy. Being nice takes effort and I'm lazy, so I'm usually good with hate._

_Today it's a liability._

_All I've done is walk in, kiss Lena hello and sit down. Sure, I probably shouldn't have held the kiss for as long as I did but I pretend I was making point. Her parents have no right to be bothered. I grew up around imprint PDA—I was being a gentleman compared to the rest of them._

_In front of me sit the last two obstacles to me and Marlena enjoying the werewolf bonus package (you get claws and fangs and a hot chick—and there was no renegotiations). Her ex-boyfriend is out of the picture. That had been almost too easy. After years of hearing stories about the happiness of imprinting Marlena had made me spill my guts exactly once before dumping the guy._

_Problem #1 was Marian Call, who had all the personality of wet plaster but had decided to make Lena her favourite after Embry couldn't stop fawning over Bert. She was a little shocked that Lena had dumped the loser after two years together; she was even more shocked that I had replaced him. Word gets around on the rez, but when she snapped out of it, I knew I'd be able to persuade Marian I was good for her daughter._

_Yes, Mom, I was an underachieving failure who never lived up to his potential and was never going to leave La Push, but Lena didn't want to leave, so there. Since I was thirteen I had made more money than my old man, who couldn't hold a job longer for a couple of months (when you had to walk off the job so you didn't kill someone you tended to get fired—who would have thought?). I had arms of steel and I could no longer catch STDs._

_Plus, I could be sweet._

_As long as Lena didn't ask where things had come from (she wouldn't; Marlena was the sort of girl who took it on faith I was just misunderstood) I would give her anything she wanted. I had already started. There was something to be said for having someone who didn't complain about everything I did. Plus, listening to Lena, letting my mind wander, was soothing, even more so than getting punched by Levi. Maybe I could manage to get through the day without wanting to commit patricide if I was with Lena. Anyway, the point was that we worked well together and her mom would love me when she saw just how ecstatic her daughter was, being with me._

_Embry...would take a little longer._

_He should be grateful; if I hadn't imprinted on Lena he would have just been continually subjected to Levi's sad little thoughts (all I ask for is some creativity). The whole situation might have torn the pack apart—and they had all been covering for each other for so long they couldn't have that happen. He should thank me._

_While I was planning on enjoying the many physical perfections Lena possessed, I wasn't as single-minded as my fool of a little cousin._

_It was now impossible for me not to notice the way she had less of a filter than me even if her thoughts were a whole lot kinder, the way she always held the door for people, the way she cut her meat into huge pieces just so she could chew them for minutes at a time, the way she tucked her feet under her chair when she sat just so no one could accidentally trip over her, the way she would roll her eyes at me when her dad got particularly long winded..._

_Is he still talking? I could have written the whole history of the tribe in the time it took Embry to just shut the hell up already._

_Back to Lena then. Seeing how sweet she was kind of made me glad she never had to worry about anything in her perfect little life, with her two adoring parents with their two steady jobs and their two perfect kids, two perfectly planned years apart. I liked that she had grown up in a bubble, that she thought my family was a little weird but nothing more (that she just _couldn't_ understand that Daddies weren't always there and Mommies weren't always happy). Hell, I liked that Lena just thought I was assertive and not a complete failure as a human being._

_It was sweet of her. Naive, but sweet._

_Lena was nothing like my mom who thought I didn't try or my dad who hated when I did (can't be shown up by your boy, right Dad?), she just wanted me to do whatever I wanted. That suited me just fine. While she had her share of stress and problems, they were so laughably innocent they made me feel normal just by association._

_Too bad she has such a sharp elbow; her father deserved to have someone start snoring in his face._

"_We're just going to the movies, Dad. We'll be fine," she interrupts him finally. I think she realized I was just going to drag her out of there if I had to listen to much more of him._

"_I'll have her back by twelve."_

"_Sir," Embry corrects._

_You don't have to call me sir. Only for Lena do I not say it, though even for her I can't keep the smirk off my face._

"_Maybe you should stay in and do some schoolwork tonight, sweetie," Marian suggests. Is that code for ditch your boyfriend, or what?_

_Lena rolls her eyes (that right there is why I love her) and grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet. "I promise we'll be safe."_

_I can't help it; I wink at Embry. We'll definitely be safe._

"_Will," he barks before he can stop himself. "Outside."_

_"Dad, cut it out. We'll be late."_

"_It won't take long," I promise her. This time I am kissing her to prove a point though the longer I do it the more I forget what point I was making. So Embry pulls me out by the back of my shirt._

"_You lay a hand on her and I will ship her so far away from you that you will never find her again."_

"_You'll send her to Hoquiam, right?"_

_He growls because he hates that he's that transparent. Embry was totally in love with his in-laws; Lena was a big fan and since Levi had been stalking her at the time I knew she had been devastated when they moved away after retiring. It was the only place that wasn't Forks that he could send her; not that Hoquiam was far, either. But as close as it was, that didn't work for me._

"_You know as well as I do I'm _physically incapable_ of making her unhappy. She's going to fall in love with me—I suggest you get used to that idea, Dad."_

_He growls and, yes, it was terrifying, but my father had been growling at me since I was a kid. And now I'm tired of standing around._

"_Embry, think of it this way. At least we know you might only be related to one of your best friends now."_

_I pat him on the shoulder because I can't tell my girlfriend's father to fuck off, no matter how much I want to._

_Better and better, he doesn't even have time to respond, because Marlena is glaring at him from the door._

"_Are you two finished?"_

"_I just have to swear never to touch you again."_

_The disappointment on her face was better than telling Embry to fuck off._

"_Dad, just go in—"_

_So, my girl is a klutz who can't walk down her front steps. Fortunately, catching her before she falls completely earns me some goodwill._

"_I'll see you two at twelve," Embry sighs._

"_One thirty and don't wait up!" Lena calls over her shoulder as we hurry to my car. I can't help waving goodbye._

"_Ignore my parents please," she begs once we're inside. "They just...they can't help being weird."_

"_I don't want to date your parents." Piss them off, maybe, but not date them. "So you wanna hit up the beach or Joe's party?"_

"_Joe's party." She gives me this grin that is all I can think about nowadays. "There's a bruise on my hip you need to kiss better."_

_Damn. I love her._

"It's not that bad," I tell my father as we phase. "Kind of gross seeing Will turn into a sap, but Embry can't be too upset. Right?"

It took Will six days to convince Marlena that she wanted to dump her boyfriend she had been seeing since she was fifteen and take up with him. It had taken him six hours to have Embry calling for his death.

Aunt Rachel was wrong—Will was an overachiever.

Now my father was shrugging clothes on and we were heading back home, Will's memories in our minds. He revisited them in depth, just to prove he liked her, really liked her, and that he wasn't just screwing her to screw with Embry or anyone else in the pack. The older men had looked—Embry still wasn't satisfied. What did he want? Bet Will would have gotten 'I love Marley' tattooed on his forehead if he had thought of it.

"You clearly have never had a daughter."

"And you're not going to for a long while," my mother threatened as we walked through the door. "What did you think?"

"I think Embry is not going to be happy," Dad sighed. "If I ever get the imprint fairy alone remind me to kick her ass. Embry does not need...he's not going to be happy."

"Imprint fairy?" I asked. They'd been pretty vague about the imprinting thing.

"The imprint fairy is something Embry came up with years ago so we could pretend there is a reason for the all the bizarre pairings that happen around here," Mom explained.

Dad continued: "The imprint fairy is a big cosmic matchmaker that hates us."

"And has made a lot of the guys very happy," Mom added to be fair.

"Until Embry had to read Will's thought about his _daughter_."

"He likes her." I didn't know why I stuck up for Will. It was habit, I guess. "In his way. And he really would do anything for her. What more does Embry want?"

"I think a little fear might help," Dad said.

"What does Embry want that Will might actually do?"

My parents went quiet because of course there was nothing to be done. They know that too because as they explained before they are the experts at handling guys with big egos and little brains (I think they were trying to make some sort of point but my little brain couldn't figure it out). Using the voice I always knew I couldn't argue with, even before I knew some of the others physically couldn't disagree, Dad said, "I'll have them run different patrols until Will gets better at hiding his thoughts. They'll get over it. And if they don't get over it in a few weekks...I'll talk to them."

Beat them into submission. Excellent.

Before I could point out that Will didn't really want to hide his thoughts, my mother told me I had to persuade him that it was in his best interest to play nice with the others. Otherwise, I was going to get stuck as the messenger between the new guys and the old timers.

She didn't even care that it wasn't fair, either.

"How did Seth take it when you imprinted on Mom?" That had to be almost as weird as hearing your son-in-laws' thoughts. And yes, I was bringing it up because I didn't like being made into the messenger boy.

"I didn't imprint on your mother," Dad said, wrapping his arm around her waist. They were doing the thing they always did, where they stared at each other and talked even though no one could hear them. "Please. I'm much smarter than an imprint fairy."

"You mean you two are like that naturally?"

I was going to be sick.

Well, it wasn't so bad, now that I knew it wasn't just part of an act but the way they actually were. Even if I could have lived without the goofy smiles.

"Don't you have a patrol to be on?" Dad ordered me out.

"This is child abuse," I called as I headed out. They don't care. Whatever. They were cute like that. I could just go crash at Will's.

* * *

Except Marley was a slut, so my cousin wasn't home that night. In fact, he wasn't home most nights. Not only was he never in our usually hangouts, he stopped coming over. Sure, he still ran patrols with me, still let me into his head enough to brag, but when we weren't wolves I hardly ever saw him.

I ended up becoming friends with Brian—which Judy swore was a betrayal of some sort of secret sibling contract. Since Dinah dumped him (and wasn't in town), I figured it was okay.

And Brian was an alright guy.

He helped me think of all sorts of things I could call Will. While he didn't like any of my old friends it was probably better that I didn't hang around them, seeing as I got mad pretty easily lately. Instead we just did the sort of crazy stuff you could only do after you became indestructible.

We even snuck into his dad's liquor cabinet one night. Sam Uley had quite the collection.

"You know," I said to Brian at some point, "You're not quite as evil as I've been told."

"She called me evil?"

"She didn't really talk about you much to me." His face fell a bit, so I added, "She knew I'd just make fun of her. And you. And basically everything. She never told me anything. I don't even think I know why you guys broke up."

"I didn't go to school with her and Francy."

His twin sister (who was actually pretty hot considering she was supposed to look like Brian) had gone off with my sister back in September. They were both going to come home soon and be a little freaked out that we had turned into werewolves while they were gone.

"So?"

"So? She said I should have gone."

"Why didn't you?"

Brian wasn't a loser like Will, who refused to use the brains he had. Brian had beaten everyone in school, but all he did was shrug. Two months ago he never would have answered me. It was amazing what hoping to fight vampires together could do to a relationship.

"Dad has bad days, sometimes. Really bad days."

Before I had become a werewolf I hadn't known that. Sure, everyone in town suspected that Sam Uley hadn't been quite right since his wife had keeled over a few years back but no one could quite put their finger on it. I knew from Will that maybe he liked to relax every so often, but I didn't think anything of it. The twins were really great at covering his ass. Only now that I could read the man's mind did I know just how much of a wreck he really was.

Hell, he was practically keeping every bar in town in business singlehandedly. It took a lot of stuff to keep us out of it.

I didn't see what that had to do with Brian going to school—alright, I did. If something ever happened to Mom, there would be no way I'd leave Dad to try to stop Dinah and Judith himself. And there were more Uleys than Blacks.

"That sucks man." It was good for us tonight, of course, because it meant the liquor cabinet was stacked, but I didn't say that.

"Yeah. Your sister thought it was just an excuse to break up, though."

"Was it?"

"No."

Damn. Dad had been right and Mom had been wrong to say it was just paternal paranoia—he really had wanted to marry her. I always knew Brian was an idiot.

But at least he hadn't left me for a piece of ass.

"I ever tell you the story of how Francy turned down Will?"

"What?"

Payback was a bitch.

"Oh yeah. It was epic. We were at this party and she was there." With Dinah—they were good friends, which is probably why I had never made a move on Francine myself despite her being the hottest girl on the rez. "He had a thing for her then."

"Uh huh."

"Well, a thing for her legs. So he comes on to her and she tells him to get lost."

Her exact words had been: "If you think I like the way you've been making my life miserable lately, think again, William. Please just go away." I wasn't being a jerk friend for remembering, either. Will himself brought it up all the time, whenever I thought that maybe it would be worth it anyway, despite how it would piss Dinah off. "You can't date a chick who hates my guts," Will would say, laughing all the while. He knew that meant I wasn't going to end up dating anyone on the rez, which suited me just fine because I so had better things to do with my life than abandon my friends for a _girl_.

"And when he didn't leave her alone," I continued, "Dinah called the cops. They broke up the party and everything."

I had been a panicking freshman at the time and Will had barely gotten me out in time, so that part was a rather vivid memory. It was the first time I had ever snuck past patrol cars. The fight he had with Dinah the next day was also impressed into my brain—no one could do furious like my sister but my cousin gave it his all.

"Bet you he never bothered her again," Brian said with a smile. He missed Francy a whole lot, you could tell. He also missed Dinah, but I wasn't supposed to have figured that out.

"Never."

"Does this mean I have an excuse to beat him up next patrol?"

"I guess it does."

* * *

One night I got stuck babysitting when my sister walked one of her little friends home. Nothing was far on the rez, but there were wild animals out there, don't you know. I think my parents just wanted me out of the house so they could talk about something because they kept gazing at each other. I was a good son and left them alone. Well, maybe I reminded them to use the backyard.

I let the girls jabber on ahead, not really listening to what they were saying. Something about shopping, I think. But all of a sudden I wasn't listening to even their annoying whispering.

"Where'd she go?" I asked, looking around. Judy rolled her eyes.

"Way to pay attention, Levi."

Then she stormed off, totally overreacting to the fact I hadn't realized we'd already dropped her friend off. I mean, who cared? It's not like I had let the kid get eaten by bears.

"What's eating you?"

"Get lost."

"Hey, what did I do?"

"Nothing. Not that you would notice if you did."

I hated PMS. There was nothing to do but wait it out. Not that it seemed to be working because she just kept scowling. I went with the most common source of my sister's annoyance.

"I can beat Will up if he did something." When he trashed her Barbie Dream House when she was seven I put a worm in his bed. "He won't bother you if he's in a coma."

It made her laugh, which is all I cared about.

"How I supposed to learn how to drive if he's in a coma?"

"I'll teach you. I'm so much better than him, anyway."

"Weren't you the one who crashed the Rabbit?"

The loss of his precious Rabbit (a car that had been twice my age when I had crashed it, by the way) was the reason Dad was never, ever going to get me a car. The things your family wouldn't let you live down.

"So? I'm still a good driver."

We teased each other back and forth as we walked home—she'd mock my driving skills and I'd mock the fact she had yet to get behind the wheel of a car. Dinah could drive at fourteen (then again my older sister was always trying to make the rest of us look bad).

"Levi?"

"Yeah, Jubes?"

"Does you being a wolf mean you're going to get a girlfriend, too? And get even busier?"

I almost marched right over to Aunt Rachel's house right then to kill Will because I hated how upset my kid sister sounded. Asshole. Then I realized maybe it wasn't really about Will at all. Duh. I was crap at this whole being responsible thing.

"Nah, kid. I'm better than that."

"Promise?"

"Yeah. So do you still need someone to drive you and your friends to Port Angeles?" There was no way she was going to get rid of me. And if listening to giggling freshmen for hours was the fastest way to prove it to her, then I guess that's what I was going to do. Since I didn't have a best friend anymore, I had the time.

"You're offering?"

"No, I'm offering the service of my imaginary pal Jeffrey the Chauffeur. Of course I'm offering. You want me to do it?"

"Sure." Then she grinned. "Jeffrey's a stupid name for a chauffeur."

"Now you're going to get it."

"Scary," my little sister laughed.

* * *

I was playing video games, keeping up my reflexes, when I heard the knock on the door. It was so quiet I barely noticed even if I was getting really good at hearing things I wasn't supposed to now. So since I was the only one home I got up and went to get the door.

It was Kara (or Jared's daughter, as Dad sometimes called her when he didn't want to bother to remember her name). At least, I thought it was Kara. A scarf almost completely obscured her face. It was getting nippy out. Not that I had bothered with shirt, but humans were getting colder.

"Judy's with my mom. They'll be a while."

Despite being just a little older than my kid sister, I hadn't though Kara was friends with her. Judy would have talked her to death.

"Oh," she said. The problem with Kara was that she never seemed to speak above a whisper. It was annoying as hell. "Um...maybe I could talk to you, for a second?"

As kind of cute as it was having my own little fan club, I was not interested.

"I've got stuff to do."

"It's just..." It was only because I was so surprised she hadn't just given up that I didn't shut the door on her face. She wasn't really the type to handle rejection well. "There's something kind of important I wanted to ask you."

"Listen—"

"Please?"

Since I couldn't turn her down unless I let her say it, I finally nodded. "Go ahead."

"Can I—can we go inside first?"

No way in hell was I letting through the door where there weren't a host of neighbours around to swear to my mother that I had not gone near the kid. So I just crossed my arms and waited for her to get to the point.

"Right," she said. She was beet red at this point, so I was still hoping she would just give up before she said anything. "Well, okay. I just...I wanted to ask you if, um...if you knew how my dad died."

It wasn't quite what I had been expecting.

"What?"

"Because you can read their minds, right? And their memories? That's what your dad said when he explained it and I...I always thought it was a car accident only Moms was lying because it was actually vampires, because vampires really exist, right?"

She just looked up at me with these enormous misty brown eyes, this little midget of a girl, and I was a little bit afraid she was going to start bawling on my front porch. That's why I motioned for her to get inside (the cold wasn't doing her any favours) and then sat her down at the kitchen table and pretended I was making hot chocolate as I figured out what the hell I was supposed to say to that.

Dad shouldn't have let people tell their children just because he felt guilty that Judy was a snoop. Especially when Jared had been dead for most of her life. What did it matter to her if he was crushed around the ribs or decapitated in one fell swoop? It wasn't like it would bring the bastard back.

And I did not want to have to deal with a hysterical girl.

"All this supernatural stuff kind of weirds me out," I said for starters. "I don't think it would be a good idea for me to go poking around for stuff that I never experienced myself. But I'm sure if you asked my dad or maybe my uncle or..."

I think I would have preferred the hysterical crying to the way her face looked just then, like I had run over her puppy then backed up a few times for good measure.

"I don't think they'd think it was a good idea."

"Then maybe it isn't."

"I just...I just want to know what happened, what really happened. Moms won't talk about it, but I...thank you."

It was just hot chocolate. But since that was all I could do...no, it wasn't all I could do. I wasn't going to tell her about how stupid her old man had been, how he had been taken by surprise, how his organs had been ground together like hamburger. But not everything I had been shown about Jared was about the man's death. And I could tell her that without getting my ass kicked.

So I did. She drank her hot chocolate slowly and I went through some of the stupid stuff her dad had done before my time, the time he tripped and fell off a cliff, his struggles assembling the puppet theatre they had got her when she was three, the weeks he spent searching for a perfect frame for her mom's high school notebook that had their initials scribbled all over it and how he raided everyone's memories so he could carve her cradle all by herself.

Kara was good about it. She didn't cry, like I was afraid of, just sat there and listened, sometimes laughed. She wasn't a bad kid at all—and she was a very good listener because I was still jawing when Brian came over to get me for patrol.

"Thank you," was all she said and then disappeared.

"You okay?" he asked me as we headed to the woods to phase.

"Yeah. Why?"

"Didn't know you did nice."

I punched him and then phased because that was easiest.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: In the defence of Dinah, I wouldn't take the explanation her ex-boyfriend who is having a very bad couple of months gave to her abrasive younger brother that he isn't particularly close to as the definitive answer on what she was thinking.

* * *

I was fast asleep when the howling woke me up.

Without thinking I got out of bed, prepared to be hustled off to Aunt Rachel's without explanation, already planning what I could do to Will when we sat around having breakfast, waiting for my parents. Then I remembered that I was a werewolf—I knew what the howling meant.

It wasn't just my parents disappearing to fight anymore.

I was going to get to fight vampires!

There was just one tiny problem.

"Stay here," Dad ordered.

"Excuse me?"

"Stay here," he repeated. "With your sister. We can handle this without you."

"I am not babysitting while you—!"

"Hush," Mom snapped. "You'll wake her. Someone has to stay, Levi."

"She's fourteen. And you promised! You said I could—"

"Your sister is not waking up to find us all gone," Dad said with same finality. "You are not to leave your sister alone. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," I snarled. Asshole. Major asshole.

I hated my parents.

They were already out the door, phasing on the fly, rushing off to help whoever was on patrol trace the scent of the vampires. Will and Brian would be there (actually...maybe not; it would depend on how sober Sam was because Brian wouldn't leave the kids if his dad was too out of it) but even if the three of us and Sam weren't there that left seven wolves. Not good odds if you were a vamp.

I still could have helped.

So I picked up the phone and called my Aunt Rachel.

It took me a minute to convince her to come over, but in the end she agreed. Uncle Paul must have told her to stay put. With her here, Dad couldn't complain about me leaving Judy alone and I could join the hunt instead of sitting on my ass.

"What's all the noise about?" Jubes asked. I hadn't heard her wake up, but it was about time. How could she not hear the howling? "Are Mom and Dad gone?"

I hated how scared she sounded just then.

"It's nothing. Just go back to bed."

"They're out there, aren't they? Fighting...vampires." The word was foreign in her mouth. She had heard the stories but she hadn't seen our parents rip the truth to pieces with their teeth. Judy didn't get it. I wanted to keep it that way.

"They'll be fine, kid. Or they would be if I could look after them."

"You're babysitting?"

She sat down beside me at the table, looking apologetic. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and messed up her hair a bit. She punched me (I warned her to stop, but she didn't listen) then got ice for her banged up hand.

"Sorry," I said.

"You should go," she murmured. "I'm fine by myself."

"Sure, kid. I know. I'm just going to wait a bit; give them time to realize how much they miss me."

Aunt Rachel showed up pretty quickly after that, Benji half-asleep beside her. The benefit of being a kid was that he thought this was cool; he was also asleep on the lower bunk in Judy's room before I had finished thanking Aunt Rachel for coming.

She just told me to get my ass out of the house.

Hell yes.

It took me a moment to get oriented after I phased. Everything was chaos in the middle of a hunt. Quil had the vampire in his sight, so I concentrated on his thoughts, on figuring out where he was so I could get there in time to help. Realistically, I knew I'd be too late, but I wanted to at least try.

Embry reached Quil first; my father ordered them to attack together. They jumped.

The vamp never even had a chance.

Crap. So much for any fun I was going to get to have tonight.

_Next time,_ Will told me with a shrug. He had been up in Forks doing business and had taken too long to catch up with the rest.

I was going to make fun of him when my father interrupted.

_What the HELL are you doing here? _Considering he was just a disembodied voice, he sure managed to sound loud in my head. _I told you to protect your sister._

_Aunt—_

He didn't give me a chance to explain, just started getting into it, outlining all the ways I was a lousy son and a crappy werewolf. There was a lot for him to pick from him and apparently my dad had a better memory than I thought.

The good thing about being a werewolf was that I was both a wolf and a human being. I phased back. No way was I listening to that when I didn't have to.

The forest was a lot colder when I was stark naked, no fur coat to keep me warm. I didn't care. The anger helped keep me warm, even if I couldn't get too angry. There was no way I was going to risk phasing back with _him._

A tiny grey wolf eventually appeared at my side. She didn't phase back (thankfully, because I really didn't want to have to deal with my naked mother just then), just fell in step beside me. Since she wasn't trying to make me do anything I let her stay with me.

"Judy's safe," I promised. "Aunt Rachel is with her. I made sure she showed up before I left. I wouldn't—"

For some reason, I couldn't really talk. I had to look away, which is why the tongue on my hand made me jump. My mother was licking me. Somehow it wasn't freaky; it was reassuring.

After she had given Aunt Rachel the bed, my mother went to talk to Judy. I didn't blame her for that; I could wait until my little sister wasn't freaking out before I started telling my mother that she really should consider getting a divorce.

* * *

Even though Benji was in the room (which meant they were whispering) I could still hear them. My ears were getting great. I could picture it easily. Mom would be standing up beside the ladder as Judy lay in bed, heads bent close.

"I'm sorry we woke you up. I just wanted to let you know we were back."

"Did you kill the vampires?"

"Vampire. And...yes, I guess. We took care of him."

"Cool. You know, Mom, I was thinking...all this waking up in the middle of the night can't be good for me. I should stay home from school tomorrow and recuperate."

"No."

"But it's _impossible_ to learn while exhausted."

"Your siblings did it."

"Di's a genius. I need my beauty rest."

My mother laughed. Why was it little sisters were cute, but I was just a jackass? It wasn't fair. "You're out of the house by ten, tomorrow."

"Mean." I could hear my sister tucking the hair behind her ear, so I had two seconds where I knew my mother was going to kill me but where I couldn't do anything to stop it.

"What happened to your hand?"

"Oh." To her credit, Judy tried to think of something. But under my mother's glare, hurricanes decided it would be easier to just quiet down. "I hit Levi. It wasn't his fault."

"That's what you get for going around hitting people. Violence never solved anything." Except for the leadership problem in La Push and the threat of incoming vampires, but I guess Mom didn't feel like going into that right now. "Did you put ice on it?"

"Yeah. It's feeling a bit better. He said I didn't break anything."

"That's good, then. Out by ten, Judy."

"Promise," my sister agreed. I heard my mother kiss her goodnight before she crept out to talk to me. Dad still hadn't come back but I wasn't going to ask where he was.

"He was just worried," she said quietly.

She was covering for him? I couldn't believe it. I should have expected it, of course, because when did my mother not cover for him, but it still pissed me off.

"Why do you always do this? Why do you always lie for him? I'm your _son_! Can't you just tell me the damn truth for once in my damn life?"

She seemed taken aback. Good.

Screw her.

Screw them both.

"Levi, where are you going?"

"Anywhere but here," I snarled. She stared at me with her big dark eyes, completely lost. I...I couldn't look at her very long. So I headed down to the beach and met up with some of the guys I hadn't seen for a while.

* * *

Will and Brian showed up at two in the morning, but by then I was high enough that I didn't care.

"We've got to go," Will said to me, ignoring the others. Brian was staring at them, totally freaked out.

"I'm busy."

"Levi, I'm damn tired. Let's just go home."

The others heckled Will, but not for long. These guys were tough, but everyone knew my cousin had a short temper. And that the two of us were a team.

"Fuck off."

Will said nothing. Just sat down beside me. Then he ordered Brian to get my other side.

"I said: fuck off."

"Free country," he shrugged.

"This is what you two do for _fun_?" Brian asked.

I was in a much better mood so I got back to ignoring them. The stars were moving tonight and I was going to enjoy the small buzz I had managed to create.

* * *

The bed was like sleeping on cardboard, which is how I knew it wasn't mine. I liked my mattress comfy, thank you very much. Not that the bed was that foreign to me; even with my eyes closed I knew it was Will's. I didn't even have to use my sense of smell. His house was closer to the beach; it was a lot easier to crash here.

The room was a mess (to better hide the way most of the floor could be opened up) so I was on high alert as I picked my way through the disaster. Besides the bed and the clothes on the floor there was nothing much in the room besides vaguely obscene posters on the wall and the bookshelf crammed in beside the bed. Aunt Rachel thought he used it to hide drugs; Will resented the implication that he would be that obvious.

I found my cousin in the kitchen, making scrambled eggs.

"Those better be for me," I said. "I'm starving."

"The guys wanted to know why you didn't OD last night. How much shit did you take?"

"What did you tell them?" I asked as I got something to drink. My head felt a little cloudy but it wasn't bad at all.

"That as sweet as them babysitting was, you looked fine so clearly they were too stoned to count." Will looked like he wanted to throw the frying pan at my head, but left it at that.

"Thanks. Where is everybody?"

"Mom's at work and Paul took Benji to school."

I was surprised; he must have seen it too.

"If I didn't have to babysit your pathetic ass this morning I would have done it. But Paul has a job this week and the school's on the way."

"So glad you could fit me into your busy schedule."

"What?"

"Nothing. I'm going to take off. You wanna meet me at the beach tonight or will you be too busy fucking Marley?"

For like half a second, Will looked surprised. Then he flipped me off. "I hold my kid brother's hand because he's seven, Levi. I'm not going to hold yours. You already have me hanging out with freaking _Brian_."

"Screw you."

"What has gotten into you? First you ignore your Alpha, now you're pissed at me?"

"My _father_—"

"It's only been going on our whole lives, loser. When the vamps are around they aren't our fathers."

"So how come my mom manages not to be a complete domineering asshole about everything? Not that—she stuck up for him last night. Like always. Lied for him. Just like when we kids."

"Your Freudian crap makes me sick, you know." But Will sounded almost serious. He handed me the plate of eggs then sat down at the table, almost grave. "I'm not a jerk because of my father; I hate my father because I'm a jerk. Mom was right, Levi. She was right—my dad's sick. Anger issues and werewolf powers means he can't help most of the crap he does. Hell, him leaving us all the time was him doing the best he could."

"You're...defending him?"

"I'm just as pissed as you are that they never bothered to explain it to us properly. We had no choice but to think they were lying to us. Not unless we wanted to be as naive as the Three Stooges..."

Dinah and the twins had been a lot happier just taking it on faith that our parents loved us and were taking care of things even if nothing added up, but I didn't say that. I didn't need to; Will knew it was the truth just as well as I did.

He continued: "But since we know the truth now, you're an idiot if you stay mad at your parents for something they didn't do."

"I'd be an idiot, huh?"

"Well, you're already an idiot, but you'd be a bigger one. Go home. Your dad was keeping La Push safe last night; you picked a dumb moment to challenge him."

"I wasn't—I didn't do it on purpose."

"Of course you didn't. That's why you're the idiot," Will said cheerfully. "Now get out of here. I have to meet a guy at ten."

* * *

There was no one at home when I got there, but I knew someone would show up eventually. It was Mom who got home first, luckily. Not that I let her into my room when she came and knocked. But she didn't listen when I told her to go away.

"You just going to stay in there and sulk?"

"Sounds like a plan."

"Levi..." She sighed, the sigh of a woman who was fed up with having to put up with me. Then she came in and sat down on the bed. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Okay."

Okay? It wasn't okay that she was still hanging around my room. I said as much and all she did was shrug.

I felt myself start to shake. It was my room, after all. Then all I could see was her, purple and blue all over and that sucked.

It stopped the shaking pretty fast.

"I'm losing it," I managed to say. "I'm just so _mad_ all the time."

"Control takes time. You're getting there. We've never seen anyone learn as fast as you do."

"Then why does Dad still think I'm pathetic?"

"He doesn't. He thinks you're wonderful. He was just scared the other night. We never know how to talk to you."

She looked kind of miserable. I hated seeing my mother upset. But even more than that I hated that she thought I had bought her lies for all those years.

"I saw you."

"What?"

"When I was thirteen. You guys left. We woke up and Aunt Rachel was there making breakfast. Jubes started crying, but me and Di could handle it. We were used it. But you...you didn't come back. It was like a week and you didn't come back."

Something must have sparked Mom's memory, because she nodded. She remembered the hunt.

"We kept losing the trail. They lead us out to Wisconsin."

"I went looking for you," I admitted. "All over. Aunt Rachel said you were on vacation, but I stayed up. I heard her on the phone with Uncle Paul. I knew she was lying. So I went all around town. Only you weren't there. But I remembered the house in the forest. So I went there."

A small frown appeared on Mom's face. I think she guessed.

"Seth wasn't there." Duh. He was with her, but I didn't know that. "I...I was curious. I went poking around. It's a pretty nice place."

"You were trespassing."

She expected nothing less.

"I found you. You...you didn't wake up."

"I was on a lot of morphine." After all these years, I got an explanation. "We thought maybe they'd double back when they drew us so far away, so we had to split up. Seth and I are a pretty good tracking team. He's got the ears, I've got the legs, so we were the first ones in. It would have been okay if it hadn't been a trap. Four on two are bad odds, especially since I...I'm not the best fighter."

"But you got out."

Duh. But I felt better once I stated the obvious.

"Seth can hold his own better than you would think and I might be faster but you're Dad can go pretty fast when he wants to. He—they brought me back, drugged me up, I was fine in a couple of days."

When I was a kid I thought of my parents as invincible. Weird, sure, but invincible. My dad was built like a rock and my mom was just as tough—one time when the Rabbit broke down, I swear I saw her pick it up with her hands. So seeing her black and blue and purple all over...

It had been more than a little terrifying. It had been a sucker punch I never really recovered from.

When they came home three days later, they told us they had been on vacation. They even had little souvenirs. They were lying to me. Badly, at that. My parents were lying to me and it did more than piss me off. What was the point of playing happy family if they were just lying the whole time?

"You didn't look fine when I saw you. You looked...you looked like someone pushed you down the stairs, or something."

She didn't get it. It was so unbelievable to her she just didn't get it.

"I thought Dad—"

"Jacob would _never_ hurt me."

It hadn't looked that way. It looked like he had. And it look like she was okay with pretending...my mom was superwoman and it looked like she was okay with being turned into hamburger. What was I supposed to do with that?

"I didn't know what to think. Di didn't believe me and I didn't..." No way in hell I'd tell Judy. "Will believed me. We started watching."

All the bruises and cuts and scratches that appeared over both of them. How we were supposed to know they were just happily screwing in the forest?

"I'm sorry."

It shouldn't have meant anything.

But...

It helped.

A little.

* * *

"You've been avoiding me."

"Yeah."

If my father wanted me to say more than one syllable to him he was going to be waiting a long time. My stubbornness was from both sides of my family—I was unstoppable.

"I'm not used to having anyone disobey me."

"Comes with being a dictator."

Well, that was more than one syllable, but I gave myself a pass. Someone needed to tell him that.

"I was worried about Judy. I may have overreacted."

"Whatever."

He watched me for a long time and I gave him my best I-don't-care-so-leave look. I had years perfecting that look. But it didn't work. He ended up sitting on the porch beside me.

"I can't change what's happened, Levi. I can do a lot of things, but I can't do that. But I should have known you'd keep your sister safe. I won't make that mistake again."

"Someone has to look after her. You were never around to do it." But that wasn't true. I finally knew that for sure. He was keeping her safe in the way he was made to do. "Sorry."

"I deserved that."

"No."

The two of us just sat there, having no idea what to say to one another.

"You're doing better that I did," Dad said.

"I don't need you to lie to me. I'm...I'm a mess."

"I'm not lying. I didn't tell you to stay back because I didn't think you could handle it. I know you could; you're a natural. Better than anyone we've ever seen. You just...we're you're family, Levi. You need to trust us."

"Yeah."

"And I would never hurt your mother."

Responding with a smart ass comment (because I had seen way too much so I knew my mom liked it rough) was probably not the best way to show off my maturity, so I held back. I couldn't say anything serious because, yeah, it did make a lot more sense that vampires existed than my parents beat each other up.

I nodded instead and my dad left me on the front porch.


	5. Chapter 5

Mom sent me off to pick up some extra food for dinner (we were always running out of food) so I was driving back from Forks when I spotted Kara walking along the side of the road. Since she was going to get herself run over I stopped and gave her a lift. No sense in her getting killed.

"Thanks," she mumbled as she struggled to get her scarf out of her mouth. It was freezing outside, after all, and the tip of her nose was bright red. "How come you have a car? Can't you run, like, super fast now?"

"I always take the car when I can." Duh. "Besides, carrying food on your back is a pain in the ass."

"I guess it would be," she said through blue lips.

"Why in the hell are you out there this time of year?"

"Moms works late on Wednesday. My shift was over, but didn't want to wait around the store."

"You had something interesting to do in La Push? You would be the first."

She smiled, which just made it obvious how her lips were chapped. Stupid kid. Driving with one hand was easy enough, so I grabbed her hands with the other. I could hold both easily; the cold had done a number on her. They were as rough as mine and I ran on four paws sometimes.

"How come you didn't pick up Judy?"

"What?"

"She was in Forks with—never mind."

Judy was supposed to be in La Push, doing a project at friend's house.

"With who?"

Out of the corner of my eye I could see her mouth something, but no sound came out. It made me curious. She didn't have a chance.

"Who?"

"Levi—"

"Come on, Kara. Tell me. Please?"

"Dan."

At least his father had retired before I got stuck in his head; it would suck to kill someone's son while I could read his thoughts.

"Little Danny?"

"He's grown up lately."

Pushing down the annoyance, since it wouldn't do to phase in the car, I tried to remember the last time I had seen Danny. Not for a while. What I did remember wasn't flattering. He was a good for nothing slob.

"He's hanging around Judy?"

"Levi, I don't think...I shouldn't have said anything."

"You can't stop now." But she did. I couldn't get another word out of her on the subject. Then her house was outside the parked car and she was trying to slip away.

"Thank you," she said as she opened the door. "I think you saved my nose."

It was a good thing, since the bright red nose was the nicest thing about her face, so I was glad to help. It was worth a quick car ride to know that I now had to beat up Dan.

* * *

But before you committed a crime, it was a good idea to check your facts. I wasn't crazy enough to ask Judy in front of Dad. Things were still kind of awkward between us, but I didn't hate the guy. It wouldn't do for him to think about my fourteen year old sister with a boy—having him get locked up for murder would really ruin my mom's day.

"It's none of your business," Judy snapped when I asked her. "Go away, Levi."

"But I'm your brother," I said, lying down on the floor beside her. "Now, is it true?"

When she glared, I knew it was true. I also knew I would have to get off the floor and sit on her to get my answers, so that's what I did. I had to be careful, because I didn't want to crush her, but sit on her I did.

"How long has this been going on for?"

"None of your—October! Now get off! Levi!"

"Do you like him?"

"Yes! Please! I can't breathe!"

"Then how are you still talking? Is he behaving?"

"Stop it! Come on, please!"

I got off her then because she sounded close to tears. Her hair was a total mess and she was pouting like she used to when she was three.

"You're such a jerk. It's none of your business."

"How am I supposed to threaten this loser if you don't tell me about him?"

"You wouldn't dare!"

"I'm just looking out for you."

I really think she was going to cry. "Levi, you can't. You can't! You'll freak him right out. He doesn't even really want a girlfriend and if you—"

"If he doesn't want you to be his girlfriend then he's a moron. And you shouldn't date morons. Hey, that's good advice. You should write that down."

"Stop it," she said, pulling herself up to all of her midget height. "You go near Dan and I'll tell Dad about all the times you took his car without asking."

"He can read my mind, Judy. He knows all that." We had a sort of gentleman's agreement about that—I would try to avoid discovering just where he and Mom had messed around and he would try not to find out what I did with Will.

"I'll tell...you suck."

"I can't believe you like boys."

She rolled her eyes, my little sister who was not quite old enough to be having boyfriends who were too stupid to commit. She needed someone to look out for her.

It was Will's fault Dan ended up walking into my fist. It really wasn't my fault. If I had been trying to hit him he wouldn't have been able to walk for a week. The bruise was not my fault.

* * *

Once I got into the habit of picking Kara up from work on Wednesday so she wouldn't freeze to death along the way, I was too lazy to stop. Knowing I could make her blush without trying was good for my ego, though she did it so often I was half convinced it was just the way she looked. That was why I wasn't at home when Aunt Rachel called.

By the time I did get her message and showed up at her house, both Will and Uncle Paul were long gone.

So was most of the furniture.

My aunt was sitting on what had once been a couch but was not little more than a cushion with legs. She had also been crying, but tried to give me what I assumed was a smile when I walked through the door.

"What happened?"

She shook her head, already trying to forget the whole thing. "Paul wanted him to get a job. Things...escalated."

That was all I was going to get from my aunt. She was the queen of the avoiding everything.

"Where are they now?"

"Where else?" The forest, then. She was getting up. There wasn't much else she could do, so she started picking up the furniture. "Leah said he could stay with you until Paul calms down."

"Yeah. Be seeing you."

I left her there in the wreckage and headed to the forest. Depending on exactly how much danger my aunt had been in (Benji hadn't been home; I knew that without having to ask) I might have to attend Paul's funeral the next day. I can't say I was too bothered by it.

Will's scent was hard to find, but I tracked it well enough. He had phased back, once he could, unwilling to share thoughts with his father. Paul had done the same, so the only people in my head were a few old-timers. I liked tracking better this way.

Not that I really needed to use my nose. Will was on the top of the cliff, the same place he always went.

He looked like hell.

"We need to get someone to look at your arm. It looks dislocated."

"It's fine."

I sat down on his left side, because his right eye had swelled shut. He was naked, but I hadn't brought extra clothes so I just sat down beside him.

"What happened?"

"I just..." He shook a little, just thinking about it. Then he started cussing.

"Yeah."

When it was quiet for too long, he added:

"Still beats getting locked in a closet."

When Aunt Rachel was sick—having miscarriages like other people had dentist appointments meant she wasn't always energetic enough to deal with the hyper mess that had been Will as a child—my uncle had to deal with his son. Most of the time it hadn't really worked out too well. Not that we knew it back then, but there wasn't much you could do when you had to phase (freaking that you were killing your soul mate meant you had to phase a lot) but couldn't leave your kid alone. My parents tried to take Will most of the time; when they couldn't he was stuck with his father.

I don't think Will ever told anyone but me that he was scared of the dark.

We got to tonight's fight eventually.

"He told me to get a job; told me I was using being a werewolf as an excuse. Like he hasn't been using it as an excuse my whole life. _I_ figured out the bills when Mom was too busy supporting his deadbeat ass and I was twelve. He could have done something. But now he thinks I like—fuck him."

"Yeah."

"It's not like—I can't just stop. That's suicide. And what else would I do? It's not like I can get a job; _Brian_ can't hold a job now. There's no hope for us. And I'm good at..."

The anger seemed to be bleeding out of Will. The benefit of having a short temper was that it disappeared quickly. He calmed down; unfortunately, that meant he started thinking again.

"Sometimes," he said slowly, "It's like I'm watching myself talk to him. I know I need to shut up. I know he doesn't mean it. I _know_—I still can't calm down."

"Did you at least get in a couple of good hits?"

"Two. Then he started using his weight and I couldn't..."

"I'll help you get better," I promised.

"Thanks, Levi."

* * *

Judith didn't mind giving Will the bottom bunk, so he moved in the same way he always did (after Dad fixed his shoulder up properly). It was a good thing, Will said, that he was never going to college now. The money Aunt Rachel had saved up for that could go to fixing the house.

"You shouldn't talk like that," Judy scolded as she hung down from the top bunk so she could watch the two of us sitting underneath. It looked so dangerous I wanted to tell her to stop. "You could still end up going."

He rolled his eyes. "Sure I could."

"Don't you want to go?"

Her big-eyed disbelief—how could anyone not want to go off to make themselves more productive citizens?—turned Will into a girl. Instead of the normal sarcasm, he tried being serious. Mostly.

"Even if I did, there's only so much affirmative action can do. Senior year..." he grinned at me, because he had been busy making a killing senior year, "My marks make me look as dumb as Levi."

"Thanks. I can't believe I didn't just leave you outside bleeding."

"That hurts." He started tossing jujubes at Judy (Mom wouldn't take anything for taking him in so he gave my little sister sugar—man was evil) who could catch them in her mouth even upside down. Too much practice. She was going to break her damn neck one of these days. "I thought it took you longer than usual to show up."

"I was out."

"Brian, again? Did I tell you I was hanging out with him yesterday? We keep this up we're going to be helping old ladies cross the street soon."

"As long as we don't end up mooning over my sister."

That annoyed Judy, who adored Brian, just like she adored everyone Dinah talked to. Well, Judy adored most people, period, but she apparently had a soft spot for Brian because she looked upset with me.

"Actually, Levi was—"

"Busy not telling Dad about you and Dan."

Her eyes narrowed but she got the hint. Will looked a little too interested, but I shrugged and he trusted me enough that he knocked it off. I don't know why I didn't want to tell him about Kara—okay, I did. I knew exactly what he'd say and I just didn't want to hear it. Will had told me not to bother with Francy and he agreed she was hot; Kara did not look like Francine. To him, it would be even worse than helping old ladies across the street. But I liked my good deed.

"Dan treating you all right, kid?" Will asked.

"No thanks to you two," she said, sticking out her tongue. But the effect was ruined by her unstoppable smile. "He's taking me to the movies Friday."

"Creative."

"That's what you do with Marley," I said to get back on Judy's good side. "The two of you aren't interesting either."

Werewolf reflexes meant I was aware of the way Will froze, fight or flight response engaged. When he spoke, he was practically spitting the words.

"Heads up. I told her about your little crush."

"You're such a—" Little sister, I remembered. "Really?"

"I thought it would be funny—I'm sorry."

Excuse me?

Ignoring the way both Judy and I were staring at him, he got off the bed. "Don't bring it up with her, okay?"

"Why would I do—" Will was panicking. "Yeah. Okay. I won't bring it up. What happened?"

"You really don't want to know."

Though he stayed at our house for the next couple of days I couldn't get anything more out of him. It was easy enough to figure out when we phased together the next time—then I realized I should have just trusted Will because...yeah, I really didn't need to know.

It made the few nights until Aunt Rachel made Paul come by and fetch his son home a little awkward.

No one quite believed my uncle, when he promised it would never, ever happen again, but it was impolite to call bullshit on your own family. My Dad issued an Alpha order to the pack, though, with Mom's approval. No fighting each other indoors.

* * *

After a week, I stopped by after a patrol to make sure Aunt Rachel's house was still standing. It was. Unfortunately it wasn't empty. Still, I knocked on the door. I was not about to be run off by a girl.

Even if she was evil.

"Hey, Levi," Marlena cooed as she opened the door. I tried hard not to stare, honest I did, but that shirt was so low cut it should be criminal. Then I remembered what a dumb idea it was; if I didn't act freaked out by her Marley would get the wrong idea. "You wanna come in?"

"Where's Will?"

"Inside. We're babysitting." She didn't exactly sound thrilled about that. "Come on."

I found my cousins playing cars on the floor. I guess Uncle Paul still hadn't gotten fired so someone had to watch Benjamin. It was freaky watching them together now. Ever since Will phased he looked twenty-five. They looked more like father and son.

"Levi, look at my car," Benji said, scrambling up from the floor. "Isn't it the coolest? Look what it can do."

He started rolling the thing along the floor and up the wall, making noises as he went.

"Cool, kid."

"You want something?" Will asked me, relaxed. It was like his brother had magic powers. Or maybe it was her.

"I'm taking Brian cliff-jumping tonight. You in?"

He glanced at Marley for a second, but when she didn't look upset he nodded. "I _still _can't believe we want to voluntarily spend time with him."

"I like Brian," Marley said from the couch. She had her work spread out around her because her schoolwork had to get done even if she couldn't spend a minute apart from him. It was yet another reminder that I was losing my senior year. My parents made me study some and told me I was going to write the GED when I was ready. Still kind of sucked. I mean, I probably would have skipped most of it to hang with Will, but that wasn't the point.

"You would," Will rolled his eyes as he picked up his brother and put him on his shoulders. Benji loved being six feet in the air.

"All the girls were sorry he was always in love with Dinah because he was just the nicest guy. He never laughed when I tripped on top of him any of those times. And he always helped me pick up my books."

There were two very good reasons that no guy was upset when Marley fell on them. And she tended to fall on people quite a lot. That's why I had been stalking her once upon a time, after all.

Benji was trying to jump off his shoulders—and driving a car on his head—so Will was a little distracted. That was the only reason I let myself get drawn into a conversation with her.

"Bet you your Dad would have liked you bringing him home."

"Oh definitely," she said absently, "But I was so sorry when I heard they broke up. Did he really cheat on her?"

"What?"

"That's what I heard."

"Brian wouldn't be stupid enough to do that," Will rejoined the conversation. He had managed to get his brother by the legs and Benji couldn't babble and hang upside down at the same time. "If we didn't kill him, Fran would have."

That's what happened when you dated your sister's best friend. Or was it your best friend? I wasn't sure which it was. Dinah had been friends with both twins for a long time. When they were ten they called themselves the three musketeers—they were that lame. Musketeers didn't cheat on each other.

"Speaking of Fran," Marley was easily distracted, "I called her the other day and she totally didn't believe me when I told her I was with you. She said there was no way you were as sweet as I was making you out to be."

Francine always did have common sense; while he might have been pussy whipped right now, I still wouldn't have called my cousin sweet.

Will's grin made me think he agreed with me.

"You're cute, Lena."

Then he picked up Benji and went back to racing cars. She sighed in annoyance at not being the center of his world.

"What are you working on?" I couldn't help asking.

"Math. If it takes me long enough Will gets annoyed and does it for me. Unless you want to help?"

The pen was in her mouth as she smiled up at me. It used to drive me wild. Now it just kind of freaked me out.

"You kids have fun," I called behind her. I may have sprinted out of the house.

* * *

_Levi liked...really? He...oh. I guess I should have noticed. Oh well. I always knew you guys liked sharing but this is kind of...actually...Will? You guys are close, right? Really close? Like...do you think the two of you and me could—?_

* * *

"You know she has a giant crush on you, right?"

I was too smooth to drop the car keys, but I did stop playing with them for half a second to glance at my sister, who had her hands on her hips and was glaring at me like I was scum on her shoe. Then I shrugged.

"Yeah. I look great naked, now."

If she had gone through life blushing and stammering like she did around me, Kara wouldn't have been able to function.

Judith was not happy with my response.

"You're disgusting. So? Do you like her back?"

"I'm going now."

"Oh come on, Levi. Tell me. If you tell me, I'll tell you that Kara's had a crush on you since she was ten."

"Says who?"

"Said Dinah. She was complaining what bad taste the girls around here have."

Big sisters were not funny. But they would know. Dinah knew everything.

"Cool."

"That's not an answer. Levi, you promised!"

But I ignored my sister and got in my car to pick up Kara. It made me sound more altruistic than I really was; I think I just enjoyed talking to someone who was vaguely normal.

* * *

We brought everyone back to our house one night after a full patrol, even Brian who hadn't been allowed through our door since Dinah had dumped him. But Brian was pack now, so inside he came.

Judy was setting the table. She had been in charge of cooking, while we went for a pre-dinner party run—which meant there were lots of delivered pizzas on the table. Awesome.

"Did you manage to burn the take out again?" I asked when my sister hugged me. I'd only been gone for a few hours.

"Shut up," she said, heading towards Will, who picked her right off the ground. Asshole—but she had hugged me longer. Just saying. "That was one time and it tasted better that way."

"I'm starving." Quil was already digging through the pizza though Embry was pushing him out of the way.

I was just helping them, but Mom glared at me when she handed out the forks. How was I supposed to eat pizza with a fork? "Wait for your grandmother."

Crap. Grandma Sue was usually even more disappointed in me than my own mother. Listening her tell me to get my act together while I still didn't have my temper under control didn't seem like the best idea.

Judy, of course, was practically squealing in delight. Ignoring her I turned to the guys.

"Wanna just take a pizza and head to the beach?"

"No one will be out tonight," Will said. His mother was coming and he didn't dare leave. Uncle Paul was the one with the temper, but Aunt Rachel was the one with the pants.

Brian shrugged. "You want to fight vampires, but you're scared of one old woman?"

"Everyone with brains is scared of Sue," Dad said helpfully. While Grandma liked Brian, she wasn't so big on me and Dad. "That was some great work there."

"Thanks."

"Oh, man, you should have them," Uncle Seth said, launching into a description of our practice attacks for the sake of Judy. There was a reason he was my favourite uncle. He made our epic manoeuvring sound even more epic—and he made me sound so much cooler than Will.

He even repeated it for Grandma Sue. Not that it helped.

"At least you didn't get yourself killed," she sighed, putting her hand on Mom's. The old woman would just not give me a break.

"I could have taken out ten vamps," I bragged.

"Now we know he's a real wolf," Mom sighed. "Cocky as hell."

"Like you weren't the worst," Embry said. "Like you still aren't bragging about being faster than us."

"It's just to keep your egos in check."

All us werewolves laughed at that lie.

I had forgotten how nice it was, sitting around, just joking like this. We hadn't done this in a long time. Well, I hadn't. My parents were busy, but they usually managed to have dinner with Judy. I preferred to declare my independence by eating when I felt like it. Usually that meant I ate by myself.

We used to eat dinner all together, my parents talking over each other and me and Judy shouting over them and Dinah sitting quietly rolling her eyes at all of us, making us all be quiet for her. We'd try to pass around the food so Dad wouldn't get any before the rest of us were full, he'd complain and pout and then Mom would take pity and offer him her plate and then he'd laugh and tell her he could wait. Dad could finish all his mountains of food while Judy was still trying to decide whether to try giving me her vegetables or throw them on the floor to declare them uneatable.

By the time Dinah had started bringing Brian around in my place, I wasn't even there long enough to protest. It was just...annoying, being around everyone. Fighting for attention just seemed a little too tiring to do all the time. Not when I thought my parents weren't worth the bother. And there weren't really any girls around the kitchen table, now were there?

But even though the only women there were related to me (or married), it was still kind of fun hanging around my kitchen table.

Mom let the three of us get out of kitchen cleaning duty because we were annoying her, so we took off outside for another run.

_I missed going to your house, _Brian said. Not even Will had a smart ass comment to make. It was a lot harder to make fun of a guy when he was in my head and I could see how much he really meant it (and not just because he was still kind of hung up Dinah). Besides...

_Me too._

_

* * *

_

A/N: Dinah is coming home for Christmas, but first a certain half-vampire has to come to town...


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: I have a family tree up on my profile in case all these names get confusing. Hope that helps!

* * *

Without school (my parents didn't want me accidentally killing my classmates and even though I didn't like many of them, I agreed that murder would really ruin my day) I didn't really have much to do all day. Will was perpetually sucking face, Brian was making spare change as best he could while being a werewolf and while a lot of my old friends were never really in class I couldn't hang out with them without wanting to chew someone.

Good thing circling around the forest didn't get boring. My parents could picture it in their sleep; I was determined to do better. That was how I found the scent, something that wasn't human but was nothing like the reek of the vampires either.

It wouldn't do to let anything invade my forest without me knowing, so I took off after it. It actually circled around a few times and then I found myself at the mansion.

Uncle Seth was inside; I could tell that with one sniff. Maybe he would know what the smell was.

After I phased back and threw on my shorts I crept closer. When I got to the door I heard a voice that was too light and musical and about two octaves too high to be my uncle's. There was half a second where I worried about barging in, but really, he would have heard me coming so it would be ruder if I didn't go in.

I followed the voice into the living room—"...but the fund raising wasn't going as well as—it would be so much easier if I could show...I know. Aloud—anyway, Daddy managed to..."—to where my uncle was sitting cross-legged on the couch with the most gorgeous chick I had ever seen beside him.

She was unreal (like the other strange women I sometimes found with my uncle—where did he find these chicks?). The business suit she was wearing was so skin-tight it looked painted on, so I could see every curve; I could even tell she wasn't wearing much underneath it. The suit combined with her hair (tussled, curly, just-got-fucked hair that I kind of just wanted to mess up more) made her look like she was coming off the set of some of my favourite movies. I kind of just wanted to pull her across the table and see what happened.

"You need something, kid?" my uncle asked, looking up at me only when she stopped talking. She had 'fuck me' eyes, too, eyes that said she would just beg for it...

I had to sit down across from them. I asked, "Aren't you going to introduce me?"

For a second I swear my uncle looked nervous, even though I had never seen him calm long enough to be nervous in his life, then he was telling me her name. "Levi, this is Nessie. She's...uh, well..."

"A family friend?" My uncle nodded along with her.

"Nice to meet you," I said, holding out my hand. I couldn't exactly get up so she had to stand to reach me. She also had to lean over, which meant I totally got to see just how lickable her tits were. And got to discover that while she smelt a bit like Seth, it was faint enough that it was probably just a friendly hug (if she had been his girlfriend he totally would have been all over her because who wouldn't?).

"She just got in from Osaka."

She took this as her cue to start talking, like I cared. She had been working with a medical team there to...blah, blah, blah. Even my uncle was kind of zoning out, making jokes just so she could take a breath every so often. But he didn't seem to mind (probably had something to do with her hand on his arm).

I entertained myself for a while by thinking of all the ways I could get her to shut up. I had to stop that eventually, though, because not only was it embarrassing, but my uncle kept trying to hide his smirk and I knew eventually he'd just burst out laughing and give everything away. He wasn't exactly a subtle guy.

"Levi!"

"Yes?"

"Nessie asked what you were thinking about doing after school, since being a werewolf isn't exactly a career."

That took care of my problem. "She knows...? That's why she smells so funny."

"His mother's son," he muttered. "Half-vampire. There's not many of them and they haven't been to visit in a long while, not since Shelia kind of tried to rip off your dad's leg. Though they send a lot of cards apologizing."

"They were rather humiliated."

"One of us almost dying is just a Tuesday for us."

"Most people are less cheerful about bodily harm."

It was the first remotely amusing thing she had said the whole time, so I laughed as much as I could. Then I left because the idea of sitting around with someone who was half vampire was kind of freaking me out. Even if she was hot.

After I closed the door, I heard my uncle burst out laughing and her voice, high-pitched and pleading. "Seth, stop it. Stop it! Seth..."

But he just laughed harder. Then there was thump, as he fell right off the couch. Not that he stopped laughing. She sounded resigned: "Leah's actually going to kill me this time."

* * *

When I came home from patrol the next night it was to find my mother cooking dinner and my uncle sitting at the kitchen table peeling potatoes for her as they caught up, Mom absent-mindedly asking her brother questions.

"Where is that, anyway?"

"Africa."

"AFRICA?"

"Leah—"

"She wants you to go with her to _Africa_?"

It was like my uncle hadn't even heard how Mom's voice was threatening to break glass. He just shrugged. "She wants company and it's too sunny for her family and the other hybrids think it's too dangerous. Come on, Leah. It'll be fun."

"Fun? To go where hybrids fear to tread? What the hell is she doing in _Africa_?"

"Reconstructive surgery on rape victims, I think."

Mom stopped ranting for a whole second; under her breath I could hear her say, "It's like she's trying to make me look bad."

Seth just laughed, getting up to hand her the potatoes and kissing her on the cheek. "You're still my favourite. Now promise you'll help me convince Mom it's perfectly safe. Please?"

"You're an idiot," she informed her brother. "And you're dealing with Mom by yourself. Any place that psycho half-vamps won't go is too dangerous for you."

"You're all heart, Leah." That was when he acknowledged me, looking kind of guilty as he did. "Hey, Levi."

"Hey."

"You tell your mom who you met yesterday?"

Mom spun around, eyes narrowing. "You met Nessie?"

"Uh...yes?"

It was kind of scary how intense Mom had suddenly gotten.

"And?" she said in a nonchalant voice that wasn't fooling anybody. "What did you think of her?"

"Smelt kind of funny. Totally boring—I don't know how you put up with all her yapping," I said to my uncle. He just winced, proving he knew my mother a whole lot better than I did.

"Boring, huh?" I couldn't help fidgeting as she stared at me. "That's what you thought about her? Boring and smells funny?"

Seth gestured for me to keep going, but I had no idea what I was supposed to say. All I knew was that my mother was advancing on me slowly and I was going to be dead very soon if I didn't figure out what the right thing to say was.

"And she was cute, if you like white girls."

"Cute?" Behind her, Seth mouthed 'cute?' as he shot me a look that said I was clearly a dumbass and he washed his hands of my impending doom. "Nessie isn't cute. I can't believe you. I _cannot_ believe you."

"Leah—"

"You thought she was pretty, didn't you? You thought she was _really_ pretty. Who did I piss off? Because the universe clearly hates me."

Maybe my uncle and I could have salvaged the situation; we would have tried our hardest, anyways, and it probably would have worked out. I think. But we never got the opportunity because my father has lousy timing and that day was no exception. He walked in just then and Mom turned to him, furious.

"Did you know your son thinks Nessie is _cute_?"

And maybe everything would have been okay if Dad had told me she was too old for me and laughed and kissed Mom hello and told Uncle Seth to go mooch off another family for the night, but my dad's even dumber than I am. He didn't hear anything but the name.

"You met Nessie? She's in town?"

He was glaring pretty intensely at my uncle who was eyeing the door. "Just yesterday. She said to say hello to everyone."

"She stopped by for a _day_?"

"Her flight stopped over and she just wanted to pick up a few things from the house."

"Can we get back to the part where drooling over her bony ass is hereditary?"

Even though I could practically see Seth trying to calculate the fastest route to the door, I suspected Mom wasn't talking about the Clearwater side of my family.

"She's already gone?" my dad asked. "She couldn't come by for lunch?"

"She said was exhausted and she had a presentation today at—Jake, every time I get between you and the Cullens I end up with broken bones. I like my bones today. Talk to her yourself."

"I would have if she hadn't just fled the country," he growled.

"Heaven forbid," my mother said in her sarcastic best, "She live her life without consulting you."

In the ensuing staring contest between my parents, my uncle had time to give me a raised fist of solidarity before slipping out the door. I don't think either of them noticed.

"So who are the Cullens?" I asked.

The Cullens were vampires, they explained, through clenched teeth, still glaring at each other. But for reasons that were too complicated to explain (reasons that would have had them screaming at each other, I understood) the Cullens were not dangerous to humans and we were friends with them.

Judy came home soon after that. "What did I miss?" she asked, sitting down at the table.

She didn't need to put up with their crap.

"Uncle Seth is going to Africa."

"Cool."

* * *

My parents gave my forty-five minutes to fall asleep and then they couldn't hold it in any more. Since I hadn't managed to fall asleep yet and they were still not used to me having super hearing (I think my ears were going to be as good as my uncle's, one day), I got to hear the whole damn thing.

"I cannot believe your son is lusting after the evil undead," my mom hissed. They were lying in bed, I could tell. I was getting too good at this wolf stuff for my own liking.

"That crap right there, Leah, is why she won't even stop by and see us."

"Such a shame."

"I haven't seen her in years. She's my sister—"

"She's _not _your sister."

"So you're just going to hate her for that?"

"And for doing her damn missionary work around my brother."

"Now you want to tell the Cullens we don't need their help with Seth? After a decade, now you want to tell them to back off? You're always so gracious, Leah."

"You should have done something about Seth years ago and you know it. You're the Alpha—"

"You want me to tell him to stop coming back? Or to stay here until he turns into Sam?"

"You should have done something for Sam, too!"

"Yeah, let me just order him to get over Emily. Why didn't I think of that?"

"You know _he'd_ hate the mess he's become, the way he's wrecking those kids of his. Damn it, Jake, if you don't want to do anything about his problem then at least let me."

"You're even less qualified to help them than me. They wouldn't listen to you; they won't listen to me. I can't get _Kim _to listen to me, even after all this time. We don't know what it's like to lose the center of your universe. I sent mine away."

"And you keep regretting that, don't you?"

"Leah, don't be—"

That's when I got out of bed and got out of that house because I really didn't want to listen to them anymore.

* * *

When I got to the top of the cliff, it was to find it already occupied. Tough. It was my place to hang. Though it did put me in a better mood seeing Will really was voluntarily hanging out with Brian now; it was too funny.

Twenty bucks said the beer had been Will's idea.

"You want one?" he offered. I accepted. It seemed easiest. "Seth came over for dinner."

"At least he found someplace to go after he ran away from our house."

"Paul didn't stop laughing for twenty minutes when he heard Nessie was in town."

My uncle was all heart.

"She left town, didn't he hear? Before my dad could properly declare his love."

We started throwing rocks over the edge into the water below. We could hear when the rocks broke the surface now, despite the wind. It was Brian asked the billion dollar question—"Who's Nessie?"

"Dad's ex-girlfriend," I guessed.

"Imprint," Will corrected. I guess he had gotten the story out of Seth; it would have been nice of my uncle to give me the heads up about my mother's psychosis. "She's a Cullen. And they're the vamps that helped fight the other vamps."

"I guess Mom didn't get the memo that said imprinting didn't have to be romantic unless you wanted it to be."

Brian said, "My dad told me that before your parents got together everyone thought...imprinting always became romantic, before them. Your imprint is your soul mate."

"So my dad's actually in love with this chick." I snorted. "I guess I could see it. She was smoking."

"So's your mom."

"You're an asshole, Will."

"You're being an idiot, Levi. You're parents had one fight, big whoop. The chick's gone, tomorrow they remember they've got you to worry about. Not to mention actual shit in common and not just the werewolf stuff. Hell, my parents are still together so all you really need is the werewolf stuff."

It was almost like it was before, when there were no werewolves or vampires and my parents disappeared all the time and teased each other when they were around but never sounded like they actually hated each other. That was what Will's parents were for—I used to get points because my parents were the better actors. Only they hadn't been acting back then; but I still wasn't used to giving them the benefit of the doubt.

"Your parents have more in common than that," Brian said.

"Yeah? Besides a mutual dislike of me, tell me what they have in common."

"They..." But even Brian Uley couldn't come up with anything my aunt and uncle had ever agreed on. "At least you have two parents."

Will and I burst out laughing.

"Why am I not fucking my girlfriend right now instead of hanging out with you losers?" my cousin asked.

"Because if Embry catches you with her one more time he might just ship her out of the country?" Brian offered. "Just a guess."

"But his face is just too funny."

We started coming up with all the different ways Embry Call was going to think of to 'accidentally' castrate Will. It was a pretty boring night. But I didn't want to kill my parents when I got home, so I guess it was good.

* * *

Dad and Mom made a big show of kissing each other goodbye the next morning—grossing out my little sister in the process—before Dad took off for work and Judy left for school. I was trying to slip off myself, but my mother's gaze stopped me. Bad things would happen to me if I kept walking. I might have been pissed with her, but I wasn't going to risk my life over it.

"What do you want?"

"Sit down, Levi. Please?"

I think the last time my mother said please to me I was in kindergarten and she was reminding me to use the word. No wonder I did as she asked. Then I waited for her to start because I had no idea what she wanted to say.

"I was having a bad day yesterday."

"Seemed like you on a regular day."

"And the smartass comments begin." She sighed, sitting down across from me. "I don't...bringing up Nessie kind of brings out the worst in me. She's tied to a past where I was kind of...psychotic would be the word Embry would use."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And she really is going to get Seth killed one of these days, the stupid c—anyway. I need you to know Nessie...I might get jealous, sometimes, but that's on me, not your father."

"Mom, you want to talk about the state of your marriage, you're talking to the wrong Black. Can I go now?"

"No." She stared me down, because she was the best at that. "Levi, just—could you just give me a break this morning? I had a lousy night."

"You want me to beat him up?" Since I had turned into a werewolf that seemed like a legitimate way of solving arguments—I always said my parents were a bad influence.

At least that made her smile, even if it was sort of sad. "You couldn't take him yet. Wait a couple of years."

"Yes ma'am."

"He...he's never given me a reason to doubt him and I still can't—she just makes me nervous. I hate that you liked her. I—"

"I didn't like her. I just thought she was hot. Don't you remember? I said she was boring as fuck."

"Watch your language." Then her eyes narrowed. "Really? Boring as fuck?"

"Totally."

"Seth—"

"Finds watching paint dry interesting. She was boring. Hot and boring. If Dad was going to run off with his sister, I would worry more about Aunt Rachel if I were you. Now she knows how to tell a story."

"Thank you."

"I'm just speaking the truth."

"I like your truth. I—I got really lucky with you kids."

"Damn straight."

Laughing, she came over and gave me a hug. She also promised that she and Dad would try to fight outside the house; I told her I didn't care. So she told me that if I ever drank on the top of a cliff again she would skin my hide.

My mother—sweetest old lady on the planet.

* * *

"What kind of asshole thinks about some piece of ass before his damn wife? He always just does whatever he wants and she just smiles and tells us that everything's okay! Where does he get off? And I'm the screw up?"

I took another deep breath and kept going: "How come I'm the one who has to tell her she means something? It's his job. It's—"

The hand Kara put on my shoulder was so light I could barely feel it. Still, it finally shut me up.

"Sorry. I just..."

"It's fine."

No, it wasn't. We had twenty minutes together a week and I had spent most of it talking about my father. She had asked how I was when she got in and I hadn't been able to stop since. What the hell was wrong with me?

"Throw something at me when I need to shut up, okay?"

"Okay." She fiddled with the radio. Like usual, she was in one of her shapeless sweaters so it's not even like looking down her shirt could cheer me up. "You know, even after all that I still don't think I understand why you're mad at him."

"He...he didn't tell me. She's his imprint..." she was hot. "He didn't even tell me she existed. I mean, I knew he had this friend called Nessie who he talked to all the time but I...I didn't know she was his imprint."

"Because being his imprint means she's his soul mate?"

"I don't know." I didn't, really. The people who were supposed to explain the wolf stuff to me didn't know, so how was I supposed to know? "Imprints...it's a confusing mess. But usually, yeah. It's a soul mate thing. Even if it's not...he should have told me she existed. He should have told me—if he leaves it better not come as a damn surprise."

"Your dad isn't going to leave."

"You don't—"

For the first time in her life, I think Kara interrupted someone. And me, at that.

"Your parents are so together it's scary, Levi. I mean, I'm sure you know them better than I do, but...I used to wish Moms could have someone the way your parents had each other. Like how the garage is closed every day just so he can go have lunch with her, or the way you can just ask one and they can tell you exactly what the other would say, or just, the way they look at each other...I just, I don't think your dad's going to take off for anyone."

It was kind of funny. My whole life I had been convinced that it had been an act; just then I realized Kara probably knew more about my parents than I did. Even knowing less.

When I stopped in front of her house, Kara hesitated for a second. "Do you, um, want to come in or something? All that ranting must have made you hungry and I just feel like I should give you something for picking me up all the time and, um, yeah."

It was tempting. Kim wouldn't be home and Kara was blushing like crazy. If she had offered any other day I probably would have agreed, even if the old-timers wouldn't be very happy about me fooling around with Jared's daughter.

But today I was a little afraid I might rip her apart trying to get under her shirt.

Stupid shaking hands.

"I actually promised Will I'd meet him ten minutes ago," I lied. "But thanks. And thanks for not throwing anything at me before even though you should have."

"Anytime," she promised and then gave me a quick smile and left.

Okay, so the smile and the nose were both pretty cute.

* * *

Avoiding my dad was hard work, but I managed. I ate at Will's and slept at Grandma's (Uncle Seth even sighed and let me have the spare bed). But when I couldn't avoid going home, I went and found my dad in the forest. Then I punched him once in the face, just for good measure.

I would have gone for two, except he said he'd stop me if I did. Since I liked having the bones in my hand working I didn't try.

"We didn't mean to keep you up, but everything else was not my fault."

"You were more worried about not getting to see _her_ than Mom."

"No," he declared.

"You can't pull that Alpha shit on me." It was the one benefit of being his son.

"I was sorry I didn't get to see Nessie," he admitted. Great. Just what I wanted to hear. "Because the last time I saw her you were ten and she's important to me. Maybe I didn't handle it the way I should have, but—"

My father still was the biggest guy I had ever seen. When he was in my personal space, staring me down, I couldn't help feeling a little terrified.

"Tell me I don't care about your mother again—tell me I don't care about her above _everything_. See what happens."

When I could talk again, I reminded him: "Mom said you weren't allowed to threaten me."

"She said no growling."

"Threatening was implied," I muttered. Then I realized while he might be Alpha now, he wasn't going to be forever. "You leave her and it'll be the last thing you'll ever do."

"I can live with that."

"You know," I realized, "We might have gotten along a lot better before if you'd started threatening to kill me years ago."

It felt kind of nice, making Dad laugh.


	7. Chapter 7

When Dinah came home from school, my parents told her about the whole werewolf thing over dinner. She took it remarkably well.

"Did you all go crazy?"

My father gestured for me to get my ass out of the chair. Finding myself volunteered (I guess I was the less creepy option) I slipped behind the couch and took off my clothes. I turned into a werewolf then phased back. Dinah blinked.

"Oh. Mom, what was in these potatoes?"

"You aren't on drugs, sweetheart. We're just...werewolves."

"Spirit warriors," Dad added unhelpfully.

"Oh. Judy, pass the carrots please?"

We all watched her as she piled the vegetables onto her plate. There was no way she could ignore our staring. Eventually she had to look up.

"Is no one going to explain to me what being a werewolf means?"

Dinah was probably the only calm person in our whole family. We weren't sure where she got it from. Not that I was ever going to complain about it again, because it was nice not having her freak out. And just like me and Judy, Dinah was quick to realize how much sense it made.

Our parents had never been normal. Dad could pick up all three of us even after Judith hit puberty and he only stopped because of the looks people gave him for it. When Mom needed to get somewhere, she was always early. Being werewolves explained the disappearing and how they could read each other's minds. More than that it just explained them, how they seemed to always be moving together with the whole town moving around them, always watchful, always protective, always ready to get into a fight if they had to.

My childhood made a lot more sense if I thought of my parents as animals. Dinah seemed to have come to the same conclusion because she took the whole thing remarkably well.

"So Levi's a member of your pack?" she asked, having picked up most of the rest of it.

"Until my pack takes over," I told her.

"Someone was dumb enough to put you in charge of anything?"

Big sisters—gotta hate them.

"He's doing okay," Dad said with a grin. I almost fell out of my chair. Mom was nodding along, much to the shock of my two sisters. No faith.

"Maybe turning into a werewolf gave you a personality transplant."

"Maybe I'm just awesome."

"Despite being cocky," my mother interrupted, "Your brother has been really great about this whole thing. Will and Brian wouldn't have adjusted as quickly without him."

"You're making me blush, Mom."

Dinah had no appreciation for my moment in the sun. She had to make it all about her. "Brian's a werewolf, too?"

"But he didn't get a girlfriend out of it like Will did. Yet," Judy added. It was nice when she tried to equally make everyone's life miserable. Heart-warming, it was.

"Will has a _girlfriend_? Okay, now I know there's something in the potatoes."

* * *

Mom and Dad went for a patrol and Judy eventually fell asleep on the couch while we watched bad made-for-TV movies (she was still such a little kid). Once the last piece of crap was finished, Di shut the television and said we should go to bed.

"I've got her," I promised. It kind of freaked Dinah out, how easily I picked up our little sister. I think I might have impressed her a little bit, too. I could hope.

"You're really a werewolf?" Di asked as I carried Judy to their room. Because I was a boy (and Judy was so small you could try to ignore her) the girls had to share a room. They hadn't minded, though Jubes had kind of taken over everything since Dinah had left.

"I'm really a werewolf."

Di would put Judy to bed properly in a minute so I left one sister on the bottom bunk bed and went back out to talk to the other. Normally, Dinah looked like a hurricane wouldn't disturb her. Now...well, she looked a little wind-swept.

"Why did you all wait so long to tell me?"

The words hung between us for a long while. She meant them as an accusation and what could I say to defend against that? We hadn't told her until now. Hell, I hadn't talked to her since she went away even though she called Mom once a day. I doubted she expected me to talk to her; I had always been a lousy brother to her (she started it).

"They didn't want to distract you from your studies, or something."

"I could have—I guess there wasn't really anything for me to do. Do you think...it won't happen to me, will it?"

Judy had been disappointed it hadn't happened to her; one sister had some common sense. It was awesome and fun—and dangerous. The old folks laughed all the time because they all thought they didn't have much time left. Even I picked that one up fast.

"Don't think so. It never happened to Aunt Rachel. Mom was a fluke—and possibly the result of having such a big pack. Right now it's just me, Will and Brian, so there shouldn't be another wolf-girl. Besides, if it happens to any girl it'll probably be Dolly."

"Ateara? She's nine."

"But she's..." Vainly I tried to remember what Brian had said when he started looking through our family trees (more like a family shrub now, we were all so inbred). "The closest relative that isn't related to me. Or something. I don't know. The point is that you should be fine, Di, but we don't know for sure."

"You know...maybe you wouldn't suck at being in charge."

"Thanks." It was supposed to be sarcastic, but it came out sincere. What could I do? She had powers.

"So what's it like reading Will's mind?"

"Just as unpleasant as you think."

She laughed, quietly, so as not to wake Judy, then asked: "What's it like to read Brian's?"

I should have known.

"Calming. He's kind of okay, you know? Besides the whole being a bastard thing."

"I never said he was a bastard. I called him...other things, but not—what's it like reading his father's mind?"

"That's private pack business."

"Are you being serious, Levi?"

"It has been known to happen."

I was a pussy. I could not resist Dinah's pleading eyes. Just like the rest of my life, I couldn't not do what Dinah asked just then, werewolf confidentiality or not. Big sisters had evil powers.

"It's kind of all messed up in there. He's a lot worse than most people think. It's not his fault though. His wife was his imprint—and imprinting's strong enough to get Will a girl, so it's pretty powerful stuff."

Dinah pretended to let the matter rest; she got that I really shouldn't be telling Sam's secrets to outsiders.

"Did you get over Marley before or after?"

Like I said, evil powers.

"After."

"Aw, poor baby," she cooed. Then she hugged me for the first time in a long time. I didn't get claws in my back, so it was maybe okay. She was finally shorter than me now. Ha!

"This is weird," I muttered into her hair, short the way she always kept it. Mom had always insisted on growing out our hair, but Dinah had cut hers off when she turned sixteen. I didn't get why; Dinah didn't feel the need to explain herself. Ever. Judy was the only one in our family with long hair now.

"You're so emotionally stunted," she sighed into my chest.

"It's a werewolf thing."

"That explains a lot."

* * *

"I went to see Will this afternoon."

No enjoyable conversation ever began that way I knew from experience. Dinah didn't look like she'd been crying, though, so that was a good thing. I sat down on the couch beside her as she chewed on her thumbnail.

"And?"

"Did you know he keeps records? Like...good ones. Detailed ones."

I shrugged like I didn't have strict instructions to make sure certain books remained hidden if Will ever got arrested. There was no sense in freaking Di out for no reason. She looked upset enough as it was.

"He gave me a number. It was...a really big number. There's no way in hell it was..."

"Will's really good with numbers."

"Yeah." She knew. If Will said Sam Uley had paid him a certain amount of money, then it was probably accurate down to the cent. Dinah knew that; she also knew that Will only knew Sam's business with him and not the other lowlifes around town. A werewolf could take a whole lot of poison.

"How did I miss all that, Levi?"

"Everybody missed it. Hell, I was reading his mind and I still almost missed it. No one expected...he was Sam." Most annoying, pretentious, overbearing, stuck up guy on the rez—the lectures he'd give Will and I could last hours back when his wife was alive and he was so upstanding there had to be a stick up his ass.

The part I didn't tell Dinah was that the pack had covered for him. That wasn't her concern, anyway.

"And the twins didn't tell anyone."

Dinah was too hurt to appreciate how well they had kept their father's secret.

"I should have...I mean, I knew there was _something_ going on. I _knew_ he was lying to me, that he didn't just wake up one morning and decide he wanted to stay. As if I didn't know him better than that. We'd only been planning since we were five...it was supposed to be the three of us at college, so I knew it had be _something_. I just didn't think it was..."

"You knew he was up to something and you didn't beat it out of him?"

"He wouldn't tell me." A memory made her laugh: "The last time Brian wasn't completely honest with me we were thirteen and he didn't want me to know he had crush on me."

It was probably the closest I had ever seen Dinah to tears, so I hurried to pat her shoulder. It was awkward as hell but I needed to do something.

"He let me break up with him so he didn't have to face me. Is that better or worse than the way Francy just lies to my face?"

Dinah might have been close to tears, but she was far closer to being completely pissed off.

"She doesn't come out with me anymore. She doesn't go out at all unless someone else is paying. All she does is school and work. Work, work, work. But I didn't suspect...I thought she was just keeping busy, trying not to be homesick."

"I'm sure that was part of it."

"She said she wasn't coming home because she couldn't get the time off work. I just thought she didn't want to rub it in Brian's face that he'd been an idiot to stay behind. But the reality is...either they really can't afford her to take even a few days off, or everything is so bad she can't stand the thought of coming home for even a week."

"You have to stop beating yourself up about this."

"They're my best friends and I missed that they were hiding this huge secret from me. For _years_. What does that say about me?"

"More like a year." That didn't seem to help, so I continued: "So you're a little dense. Happens to all of us."

"Stop being nice, Levi. You cannot be nice to me on top of everything." She let out a groan. "The worst part might be that Will knew this whole time and I didn't."

It was nice, laughing with my big sister again after all this time. When we quieted, I had a pretty good idea what was going to happen next. Dinah wasn't the most observant of people (especially when it came to their feelings) but she did notice some things.

And she hated doing nothing.

"Mom and Dad run patrol every night?" she asked as she chewed on her lower lip.

"They'll head out around one, tonight. For about three hours."

"Thanks."

* * *

_It's the smell that catches my attention; the salt air of the coast has no place in the cityscape my dream-self currently inhabits. It's so comfortable I don't even start even though I can hear the window opening now that I'm awake and part of me is screaming to confront the intruder who dares enter _my_ territory. I spend a lot of time ignoring that part of me lately._

_When I sit up in bed, I don't catch her off guard. I'm that predictable to her. She's just waiting for me to wake up, sitting on the window sill as painstakingly beautiful as always._

"_I'm sorry I woke you," she whispers. "I just...I had to know if it was true."_

_Nowadays, there is only one truth that matters._

"_I'm a werewolf."_

"_Okay." But she doesn't leave and I hate myself for being glad for it. The wind is blowing gently through the open window, tousling her hair ever so lightly. With the moonlight, I can make her out perfectly, the curve of her lips, the length of her lashes, the hint of a smile._

"_Is there something else you want, Di?"_

_My words don't drive her away this time; they have the opposite effect they usually do. She unfolds her legs—as long and tempting as always—and steps into my room, looking too natural for my broken heart to take. Fortunately, my heart is a little distracted. She walks right over to me, sits down almost in my lap and starts talking. My heart is busy working over time._

"_Why didn't you come with me like we'd planned?"_

"_Di—"_

"_Just answer. Please, Brian?"_

_I can never resist her, so I repeat the same line I've said a hundred times before: "I didn't want to leave my father to look after the others by himself."_

"_Why not?"_

_And then I tell her that it's hard to look after four boys by yourself and she tells me that's bullshit because if you can raise six kids by yourself you can raise four and I tell her that if she knows everything than maybe she should tell me the real reason I don't want to go to school and then she starts guessing and...I hate that conversation._

_But tonight it's different._

_She knows; there's no point hiding it anymore because she knows. One look at her too-familiar face and I can tell she knows. Levi told her, most likely, because the kid kind of worships her, though a lot of her relatives can read my mind now. So I can say the words out loud. _

_Finally._

"_Dad's sick."_

"_You should have told me. You and Francy should have told me."_

_"We couldn't risk someone finding out and trying to split us up. We're just eighteen. What happens to my brothers if word gets out?"_

"_I wouldn't have told anyone."_

"_I know. I wanted to tell you." I almost had more times than I could count, even though Francy said we couldn't. Mom wouldn't have wanted _anyone_ to know. "I just...I didn't want you thinking less of him."_

"_I thought you knew me better than that."_

"_You're not exactly known for your empathy, darling." She had told me to go to hell, after all. Among many other things._

_There's that grin, the one that is the bane of my existence. I never understand that grin. I've accepted that I'm not supposed to._

"_I could have helped you," she whispers, her sweet breath against my lips. My darling's always been cruel. "I can still help you...let me?"_

_And I know exactly what I want to say to that, only I can't seem to find the words. I'm paralyzed. She hated me when she left. Dinah Black does not forgive._

_She continues after a moment: "Are the boys doing okay? Do they know what's going on?"_

"_If they do, we don't talk about it." Not one of us is willing to say the words out loud. _

"_Do they know about you? Does Francy?"_

_I can't help shivering as her fingertips brush the hair that is no longer there from my eyes. "The boys know I'm a wolf. The rule is we can't tell until they're on the rez. I'll tell Francy when she comes home."_

_I also have to tell her that all the money had I had planned to make while she was in school was non-existent. With all the money she sent home disappearing before I even realized it, I wasn't sure what we were going to do...but that wasn't something you told someone over the phone. Francy was better at coming up with plans. So as soon as she came home..._

"_So I can't tell her when I go back?" Dinah doesn't like that. "I guess it's only fair. She has been lying to me this whole time."_

"_Dinah—"_

"_Why didn't you trust me? Why didn't either of you trust me?"_

_The moonlight illuminates her face, beautiful as always but sadder than I've ever seen. After all this time I think I managed to hurt her more than she ever managed to hurt me. I want to touch her, to feel the way her soft skin would be cool after the walk over in the night hair, to have her melt against me the way she once did..._

_But she told me to go to hell._

_And I did. _

_Now I know how my mother got those scars. _

"_They're my bothers. I wasn't going to risk them for anyone."_

"_Makes sense," she says as she stands up. "If you need anything, call me. Okay?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_I'm serious, Brian. Any time. For whatever." It's an order; all I can do is nod. "Good. You still remember my number, right?"_

_But she doesn't wait for answer, just climbs out the window as quietly as she came in._

_I'm an idiot._

_You're an idiot,_ Will said cheerfully. I was still too busy trying to repressing to respond (I _never_ wanted to think of my big sister as hot). Brian could deal with Will on his own; he should have been able to keep his thoughts to himself. A few jokes shouldn't have thrown us back into his head like that.

"Shut up," Brian snarled as he phased back. I guess he was tired of us being able to read his mind. I couldn't say I blamed him—I needed someone to wipe my memories.

Will never did learn to keep him mouth shut.

"She would have gotten back together, idiot. Then we'd finally get a break from you moping after her all the damn time."

"She was just checking up on him," I insisted because I did not want to picture what would have happened—oh shit. Too late.

"Please."

It was only because I owed Brian for letting me hang with him for the past couple of months that I bothered disagreeing with Will, who was just stating the obvious. Dinah was trying to get back together. Preferably without having to apologize; Dinah wasn't very good at that. But after my parents, even before Will, I'd call her if I was in trouble. She kept her head in a crisis—and she loved Brian's stupid brothers almost as much she loved the idiot himself. She missed him, she wanted to help...she had gone at night for reasons that I really didn't want to think about.

"Shut up," Brian snapped.

We'd never heard him talk like that.

"Any self-respect you might have had you gave to her a long time ago," Will shrugged.

"And if she thought you were trying to protect her, she'd kick your ass," I added. It was a fact. "You might have superpowers but she'd still beat you."

"I am not taking relationship advice from the two of you."

Hey.

"Seeing as I'm the only one here in a relationship—"

"Please." I think he impressed even Will with the disdain in his voice. "What the hell do you know about trying to make a relationship work, Will? Seriously? Marley's your soul mate and I bet you'd give up on her in heartbeat if she didn't just hand herself to you."

"You need to shut up now," Will informed him. Brian had the advantage of height, but Will was angrier. Oh so much angrier. I knew where my money would be; I stepped between them. Despite the long odds, Brian didn't stop talking.

"It's not that easy, okay? Not for the rest of us. You don't just trust someone again after—just get away from me."

Then he stormed off towards his house.

Will finally released all the names for Brian that he had been storing up since we phased. Once he had gotten all that off his chest, he concluded, "I never got what she saw in him."

"I might have something to do with the fact he wouldn't know half those words you just said."

There was just a tiny smile.

Bad things happened when Will got angry (see my entire adolescence for proof).

"He just misses her and can't believe he didn't take her back. He knows you love Marley."

"I don't give a shit what Brian Uley thinks. He's alone and miserable and still in love with your sister. Lena's happy. Boo hoo for Brian for finally figuring out life sucks."

* * *

When I got back to my house, my father was on the porch. From his vantage point my mother and sisters were out of his hearing...and just in mine. But I sat down beside him anyway. He looked like he could use the company.

"I'd tell you not to let your sister sneak out of the house..."

"...but it's not like I could stop her."

"Should I talk to him?"

I blinked. I think my dad was asking for my opinion. Wicked.

"No. He's just kind of overwhelmed by everything right this second. He just needs to get used to having her around again."

Dinah could wear down mountains; Brian didn't stand a chance. The next time she came home, he'd take her back.

"If he makes her happy...at least he's better at hiding his thoughts than Will."

"No, he's not."

My father and I groaned together.

Inside Dinah was trying to adapt to all the werewolf stuff.

"Can't you just order Sam to stop drinking?"

I wasn't surprised Alpha orders were the werewolf superpower she liked best.

"Your father technically could...but then everything he feels would just come out a different way, sweetheart. And we can't make him feel differently, just act differently."

The fear in my mother's voice gave her away, the reasons the old-timers covered his tracks instead of forcing him to stop. They thought that if Sam couldn't dull the pain of losing his wife he'd simply stop living. Which, to be fair, is probably what would happen. But Dinah couldn't know that.

"Then we should do something else."

"Like what? We can't bring Emily back. What else could help?"

"Rehab," Di muttered.

"A werewolf in withdrawal." It hadn't been pretty when Will first phased, the old folks said, and all the stuff he took as a human was nothing to him as a werewolf. They couldn't risk Sam phasing in public. "It wouldn't work, Dinah. Besides, we can't make either of them accept our help. We'll invite them over more. I promise. I'll talk to Sam...he is trying, he just has bad days sometimes..."

Judy interrupted: "Do we really have to invite all the Uley boys over? They're so gross."

"Are we sure she's old enough to be dating?" Dinah teased. I was pretty sure the sound I heard next was Judy sticking out her tongue.

"Keep your voice down," my mother hissed. "I'm...easing your father into it."

Beside me, my old man just closed his eyes in unknowing bliss.


	8. Chapter 8

After Dinah went back to school and Uncle Seth took off for another continent everything settled down. Brian brought his kid brothers around for dinner more often; the Uley boys were as annoying as they'd always been, but at least they weren't Dan (Judy's oh-so-special pumpkin), so I tried to be nice. Besides, if Brian dumped them at our place he worried about them less and had more time for patrolling.

Despite the cold war he was having with Will, we needed all the people we could get on patrol. Max had decided to stop phasing and we were a man down.

It also helped that Mom went to talk to Sam Uley. Well, it helped for a few days. And when it all got to be too much...Brian brought the boys over to our house again.

But he wasn't as down about it as he had been before. Having Dinah call him every night helped though we didn't talk about it. Not that he and I disagreed much about Dinah—we both thought she was kind of scary but majorly impressive. It was just that I had never wanted to bone her for it, so I ignored them as best I could.

My father had been informed Judy was interested in the opposite sex. One Black man losing his shit was all my mother should have to handle at a time.

* * *

The look Jubes gave me when she told me there was someone for me at the door gave me a pretty good idea who it was. Little sisters sucked. How was I supposed to explain why I liked hanging out with Kara to my kid sister? I couldn't explain it to myself.

"Hey," I said. I was surprised to see her though she looked the same as always. There was her nose and then there was a mess of knitted clothing that made it hard to tell it was her. It was as a damn shame; when she wasn't covered up, Kara was cute.

"I would have called but..." we didn't really do things like that. I don't even think she had my number. "I—"

"Hold on."

Judy was a known eavesdropper (and a talented one, from all the practice) but I didn't have to make this easy for her. We stepped outside and I shut the door firmly behind us.

"Sorry. What?"

"I got fired," she said, trying to smile. It came out as a grimace. "So, um, you don't need to pick me up anymore. I, uh, wanted to thank you. For driving me, you know, all those times."

I did _not _like that.

"They fired you? Why?"

"They couldn't afford all of us and I was the most recent hire so..."

"That sucks."

"Yeah." Her eyes started looking a little bit watery. I could guess; it was just her and her mom. She hadn't walked home from Forks for fun. They needed the money. "Yeah, it really..."

I hated it when girls cried. I really hated it when they cried because people were jerks. Kara was so tiny—her boss couldn't find enough money to pay for her?

The more she cried the more pissed off I got, not that there was anything I could do besides keep holding her. Her hair was kind of ridiculously soft (not that I was thinking about that). I was trying to remember if Embry had found the extra cashier he had wanted to hire.

"You'll find something else soon," I promised her when she calmed down a bit. Chances were my parents would find something for Kim's daughter if they were asked. Not that I wanted to resort to asking my parents for help…only if I had to.

"I hope so. I just…getting fired was not fun." She used her scarf to clean up, but managed a bit of a smile. "Anyway, thank you. I'm sorry I—"

"It's fine."

"I'll see you around, then, I guess."

I had forgotten for a moment that if she wasn't working in Forks I wasn't going to get to see her. I could call her, but that was way too much effort. "Hey. You doing anything Friday?"

"Friday?" Without my superhearing I'm not sure I would have heard her. She squeaked. "No. I'm free."

"Good. I'll..." I was so much cooler than this, I swear. "You should celebrate getting fired. I'll take you out."

"Oh-kay. Sure. You wanna meet somewhere or...?"

"I'll pick you up. Seven good?"

"Yeah. It's good."

She was kind of hot when she smiled like that. Since Judy was inside and there was no one else around there was no reason not to kiss her.

So I kissed her.

* * *

_Kara?_

_You said that already, Will._

_But _**Kara**_?_

My cousin was a jackass.

_She's Jared's kid. That makes her pack. Which means we help her._

Will snorted. I shouldn't have told him on patrol, but since we finally weren't attached at the hip I had to ask him when I saw him. I still should have waited until he couldn't read my mind.

_But we don't try to sleep with her._

_I didn't try to sleep with her. _Not on the first date, anyway.

_Which makes it even worse. Levi..._ Will could not get over it. _She's like two years old, she has all the personality of a glass of water, she looks like she got hit by a car and the second her mom finds out she's going to have your father kill you. What? Why? How? Kara?_

_You didn't like Marlena either._

That shut him up, if only for a second.

_Kara's a sweet kid,_ Brian finally spoke up. _We should try to help her. But Will's right, Levi._

Words I could have gone my entire life without hearing.

Every since Brian had implied Will was taking advantage of his own girlfriend the two of them hadn't bothered talking outside of patrols. One of these days I was just going to beat them both up and make them make up. Now Brian decided to take his side?

_If Kim isn't happy about this you're dead. They'd do anything she asks them to._

_Embry has yet to kill Will. Proving that the adults around here have supernatural patience._

_Embry hasn't killed me because I can control my thoughts when I want to and, more importantly, because his wife won't let him,_ Will reminded me. Marian Call seemed to think that if Marley was happy then Embry had no right to interfere. Clearly she was in no way related to the rest of us. _Kim is another story. And not the point. You like Kara?_

_YOU SAID THAT ALREADY!_

I felt a lot better after that.

_Fine._ _The guy at the diner owes me a favor. And a couple hundred bucks, but...when I get over my shock I'll go talk to him._

I told him off for a bit and then said thank you.

* * *

_Don't let it get its arms around you,_ Dad said for the thousandth time. He was big on that rule. _Don't go for the obvious kill—it isn't stupid. Just come at it from the side and come fast and you should be okay._

_I got it, Dad._ It was a little harder to be a disrespectful brat when we were in wolf form. There was just something about the way he talked—that and I finally understood my dad wasn't a complete loser. He was sort of really good at this stuff.

_Just don't let it get its arms—_

_I got it!_

In his mind I suddenly saw why he was so worried. How had he survived getting crushed in half?

_A lot of morphine,_ Mom said. Her thoughts were filled with guilt and love and admiration. _Stupid brave idiot._

_Thanks, Leah._

But despite the sarcasm I was a little afraid of what I'd hear next so I started going through all the ways they had taught me to kill a vampire. I was closing in and I didn't want anyone worrying. I could handle this.

Not like anything could go wrong. My parents had decided to flank me. So much for letting me have my own pack.

_If you weren't so overconfident, maybe we would let you go with Will and Brian._

_Please, Dad. You're going to be over-protective until you're dead. And even then I'm sure you'll manage to hover._

_He's cute when he hovers._

Did I really need to listen to my parents flirt? We had monsters to rip apart.

_You paying attention?_

This time I didn't snap at Dad. I had more important things on my mind.

The vamp was getting closer.

Mom was fastest, but they were letting me take point. It was going to be my kill. Will and Brian were around—I was never going to mention it, but I think they knew how helpful it was anyway, so they stayed even though it was probably boring just getting to watch—but I tuned them out. All that mattered was the vampire in front of me.

Quil had been tracking him for a few days; I think the only reason the big brute was still around was because my parents were trying to make up for the fiasco when the last vamp had come around. Still, I wasn't going to complain.

The Cold One was wide and tall, solid like a linebacker, but all I could think about was that it would look tiny beside me if I phased back.

Piece of cake.

_Don't get cocky, Levi._

Ignoring my mother, I raced over the last little bit of ground.

Come at them from an angle they didn't expect, Dad said, so I did. It had heard me coming, it was ready for me, but I was fast. It didn't get a chance to react when I flew straight at its head. Veering at the last second (vamp was too dumb to realize it) I managed to sink my teeth into his arm.

With more strength than I thought I would need I tore the limb right off.

_Nice!_

_You're one damn ugly cheerleader, Will._

_Suck my—_

_Boys! Focus!_

I didn't need the warning. The vamp had tried to grab my tail—too slow. Dad and Mom were circling around it, distracting it while I waited for my opening. Without its arm it was off-balance.

Plus, I don't think it knew what the hell we were.

So I tore its head off.

_Welcome to La Push. Bitch._

_That was fast._ Dad was surprised and maybe something else.

Mom sounded like she was going to cry. _Nice decapitation._

_So who brought the matches?_ I asked as I set about tearing the rest of the body to pieces.

_Kids these days,_ Quil said in our heads. _Can't live without their fancy inventions._

_In our day,_ Embry said,_ We made do with whatever we could._

_I've got a lighter back with my clothes,_ Dad told us, laughing at his friends. _Start gathering the pieces. All of them. Levi, good job._

It was the last thing Dad said before he phased back. For just being two words, they were kind of great.

* * *

We hung out with the old timers for a while—they fed us so we stayed for a lot longer than we had planned—but eventually all their old war stories got boring and the three of us headed off into the night.

We had to jump off the cliff, just so we wouldn't jump out of our skins. The cold water helped calm us down, a bit, and we sprawled on the beach a little calmer than before. Sure, Will and I got into a fight and then Brian and Will ended up fighting when Brian tried to pull us apart, but it was pretty subdued for us. After I kicked both their asses to shut them both up, we just kind lay there for a while.

"I gotta go," Will said finally.

"What?"

"Marley told me to come over tonight and since she's got nicer tits than you..."

"Pussy whipped."

"You're just jealous I'm getting some and you're not."

Smug Will was the most annoying thing on the planet. He laughed as he raced off. I flipped him off as he went. Brian was rolling his eyes.

"One of these days she's going to tell him to go to hell, imprint or not."

"Nah. She likes that he can't shut up about her."

Marlena was just as bad as he was (though she had finally stopped asking him about...nothing we were ever going to think about). The two of them sort of deserved each other.

"It's not right, the way he talks about her."

"Okay, Brian? Don't get me wrong. I like Marley even more than you do and I think you might have a point. But you have to drop it. You don't...you can't make him change. It doesn't work like that. He doesn't listen."

"He'd listen to you."

"Maybe, but I'm not picking fights with him just because I'm hung up on my ex-girlfriend."

"I'm not—"

But he didn't waste his breath on anything more than that, because we all knew.

"It's just because she feels sorry for me," he muttered. "She wants to help; she doesn't want me. She would have done the same for anyone."

I cannot believe I was about to have this conversation about my sister.

"I didn't see her sneaking into Will's room. And she sure as hell wasn't sneaking into mine."

"That's...you know it's not the same thing. I don't want her back like this."

But it was so obvious he wanted her back (even if I couldn't read his mind, I would have known) that it was kind of making me sick.

"Brian, you're an idiot. You lied to her; she broke up with you. You told her the truth; she wants to get back together. It's really not that complicated—not to Dinah. She is going to make you let her help either way. It's up to you whether you get laid while she helps or not."

Now I needed to blow out my brains, but at least I had said it. Someone apparently had to.

"Everything between you and Kara that easy?"

"You don't see me backing down." Though sometimes I really did consider ripping out my cousin's tongue.

"Yeah, well, you can kill vampires."

Between Kim and the vampire...I would have taken the vampire every single time.

* * *

We were in the middle of dinner when Quil knocked on the door. He was still sweating from patrol and his expression was a very forced neutral. The old timers had been a little stressed lately, having officially lost Max to his humanity. The reduced numbers were throwing them.

But that wasn't why he was looking grimly at my parents.

My father was already standing. "What's wrong?"

"Sit down, Jake. Everything's fine."

My dad sat down, but he didn't relax. My mom hadn't stopped starring at Quil since he walked into the room. I winked at Judy, just so she'd stop looking so worried. There was no sense in freaking her out until we knew what was going on.

"You're not going to be happy."

"About what?"

My father was decidedly unimpressed with his old friend right then. Quil glanced around the room, like someone else would volunteer to tell us his news. When the empty room remained silent he sucked it up.

"Claire wanted to have Dolly's birthday up in Makah. So we all went there and…Brian imprinted."

My family froze, digesting the news. Only Judy could respond.

"Oh. Poor Di."

Poor Brian. After all the different ways he'd considered begging her to take him back, he should have at least gotten to use one of those awful poems.

"Who?" I asked.

"Ginger Walker."

I knew most of the girls in Makah, but... "She's not our age, is she?"

"She's twelve."

Quil took off; he left me deal with my parents. Dad was not happy. Mom was less happy. "I cannot believe that Sam's son is dumping my daughter! This is just unbelievable!"

"They're not together, Leah."

Now my father chose to be zen? Mom disapproved just as much as I did.

"The imprint fairy really does hate me. There really is an imprint fairy and she really does hates me. I can't believe—"

Then she stormed out of the room. I think she had been about to cry.

"We'll be right back," my father murmured as he followed her to their room.

"Should I call her?" Judy asked me. "I can tell her, right? She'd wanna know."

"Yeah, kid. Call her."

In the other room my father was actually doing a pretty amazing job of calming Mom down. I could hear them still, could picture it easily, the way Mom would let him hold her, the way she was clutching at his shirt, "My poor baby girl...what if she becomes like me?"

"I don't see how that's a bad thing." But when she protested, he interrupted. "I know, Leah. I know. But she's tougher than both of us. She'll be okay."

But Mom was too distressed worrying about Dinah to realize my dad was speaking the truth. Dinah would be fine. Soon.

I sat beside Judy on the couch when she called; I could hear the conversation easily enough. Dinah reacted the way I knew she would; she thanked Judy for telling her and asked us to pass on her congratulations.

Then Judy pulled out some of her little sister magic. Chin quivering, she admitted, "I always thought I'd get to be a bridesmaid at your wedding."

"Yeah..." Dinah sighed. "Me too."

On the other end of the phone I could hear her voice crack, could hear another voice behind her. Francine hadn't been Dinah's favorite person since my sister found out her best friend had been lying to her for years, but that didn't mean she wouldn't be able to help with this.

I left the girls to it; I had a problem of my own.

Dinah might have been my sister, but Brian was my pack. He had become my friend when Will ditched me, had taken my side about Kara for the most part, had made it okay for our little pack to actually give a shit.

We needed Brian. Didn't I know how much we needed Brian—Will and I together ended up kind of heartless. He ended up pissed and violent and I ended up sullen and detached and when it was just the two of us things tended to get destroyed. Having Brian with us meant we had an excuse to care without having to back down.

Things were still cool between them, but if Will had wanted to pick a fight, he would have. They had been content ignoring each other, too different to probably ever really get along.

Tonight they were both on patrol at eight, though I knew Will would be a couple minutes late like he always was. And then...then Brian would be thinking about the very important, impossible to ignore event that happened to him today. And Will would be...unhappy.

Dinah had called the cops on Will more times than I could count and he did his best to harass everyone she knew. She thought someone (_anyone)_ had to get him off those damn pills; no one on the rez paid Will as little as Sam did. Maybe it was becuase they were blood, or because having me in the middle meant they were stuck together, but for whatever reason they looked out for each other in their completely different, slightly messed up ways.

Will over-thought when he fought, second guessed himself like I wouldn't have thought my impulsive cousin would do, but he was comfortable with violence in way Brian never would be. Brian liked his words spoken in even tones. He did not like fists and fangs and claws. Both were defensive fighters, but Will could make himself fight while Brian couldn't.

Patrol started at eight.

Brian was my pack—I couldn't let the guy get killed for something he had no control over.

But Dinah was my sister.

I phased at eight fifteen.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: The reviews for the last chapter were actually some of my favourites ever so thank you all. Yes, everyone's age is intentional. The age of consent in Washington is sixteen, not eighteen. So...I'm making a not very subtle point.

* * *

"I must be officially pathetic, if you're calling me."

"Love you too, Di." I let myself sprawl out on the couch more comfortably. "You've been officially pathetic since the second grade."

"You're just jealous because I could tie my shoes back then and you couldn't. "

"I so could...shut up."

"You were a special kid," she agreed. "I'm sorry, but this weird. Why are we talking?"

"Because sometimes when you're not being a huge bitch, you think I'm entertaining."

"You've progressed to full on delusions?" She cackled on the other side of the phone.

"You're evil."

"You're the one who called me."

"I'm taking requests. Any particular part of Brian you don't want to see attached anymore?"

The broken arm and bruised ribs had been enough, I thought, but if it would make Dinah feel better, I'd be willing to top off the damage. While Brian might be able to fend off Will for a little while, he had no hope in hell against me.

"There are a lot of parts I think he could live without." Then she sighed, the sound echoing on the line. "Levi, don't."

"Yeah. I know."

"It's just..." She sighed again. "I mean, I did break up with him. Months ago."

"Ground his heart into the dust," I agreed. "While he was having a crisis, trying to keep his family from breaking up. Left him a miserable shell of a man for months. It was sickening."

"Thanks," she said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "That was exactly what I needed to hear."

"I'm here to help."

"Did—do you think...if she hadn't come along..."

"He was still in love with you." Was that part of pack confidentiality? Probably. I didn't give a shit.

"Okay," she said slowly. "It means he still wants to be friends now, right?"

"Yeah. He still wants to be friends." Hell, he might have imprinted on Ginger, but he was still in love with Dinah. Benefits of being so much older than his imprint, I guess, though we already knew Brian subscribed to the whole soul mate theory of imprinting. Loving Dinah would fade with time; it didn't mean anything. So I didn't tell her.

"Good. So...what's she like?"

"I haven't met her yet. But her name is Ginger."

Dinah couldn't help but snicker. "Judy told me. Francy is going to be absolutely horrified that she's going to have someone named Ginger as her sister-in-law."

When we were younger, I sometimes thought Brian was dating Dinah just because she and Francine had decided they had to be sisters and Brian had interrupted their planning and that was that.

"Because someone related to a Baxter has room to talk."

"It was a family name. From their mother's side."

And their mother was everything.

Emily Uley had been my mom's second cousin so our families had always been really close (even if everyone looked the other way when Brian and Di started going out). While my mom's glare was legendary, Emily managed her house with a smile. Even when she had gotten sick, she had kept playing her part. When she couldn't manage any comforting words after the last round of chemo, we all knew what was going to happen.

"Still a stupid name."

"I know. Keep last names at the end of the name. Geez." The two of us amused each other, sometimes.

"Yeah. Hey, I think Quil also mentioned Ginger was kind of seeing Arthur."

"Ouch. Prepubescent dating is hard enough without your older brother stealing the girl you were holding hands with."

I didn't been holding hands when I was thirteen, but Arthur was an Uley. I doubt he had gotten even that far with his girl before Brian had decided she was going to be his soul mate. I hoped. Because otherwise that was just weird.

"True."

"At least this way...maybe Emily's side of the family will finally start helping. I'm sure Brian's going to try to spend more time with her and maybe..."

"We're going to figure out a plan of attack today. That's why—I meant to ask you—do you want me to let Will make her cry?"

"Levi." She did that better than my mother. Hell, Dinah was almost as good as my grandmother and no one disapproved as me as much as Grandma Sue. "She's _twelve._ Be nice to her. She's going to be around for a long time."

"I know," I sighed. "Still...you know you're part of the pack. Even...you're part of the pack."

"Okay," she agreed. For a second the line was quiet. Then: "Thanks."

* * *

After I had broken up the fight the night before, I said we'd meet up for a pack meeting in public the next day. We had things to discuss, after all. Like how I wasn't going to take Will's place on patrol for the rest of my life, so they better start liking each other again.

I did not pick the diner because Kara worked there. I picked it because it was close. The diner did pretty good business (like most of the tourist traps did) and the owner was paying her under the table, which was fine by her. I wasn't exactly keen to have Kara around him, but I didn't know too many respectable people. Not ones I could bully at a moment's notice, anyway. The job paid and she was happy, so whatever.

And she looked damn hot in the uniform. She should wear more skirts.

Just saying.

Anyway, I got to talk to her while I waited for the guys to show up. Unfortunately, Will showed up first. Fortunately, he brought Marlena with him like I had asked.

Will ignored Kara (which was better than him picking on her, I guess, so I let her get back to work) and settled across from me. He rolled his eyes at me, I flipped him off, we got to the business of looking for something to eat.

"You want anything, Lena?"

"I'm not really hungry," she shrugged, snuggling closer to him.

"Brian's late."

"Probably doesn't want to talk to you." Then I told him, "I talked to Di this morning. She seemed okay with it."

"She's just glad he traded down."

"Ginger could grow up well."

"But Brian's more of a Mary Ann guy."

She would still make him happy.

"You ready to order?" Kara asked as she came back around.

I listed off what I wanted then Will got Marley a plate of fries when his girlfriend got too excited at having Kara nearby to respond to the question. I stopped thinking Marlena was evil by the time Kara had left the table. Hanging around Will might have turned her into a crazy slut, but she was still a sweetheart. I mean, I wished she'd stop fawning over my cousin, but she was making everyone get along and for that I was grateful.

"The four of us so have to double date," she announced after Kara was gone.

"Sure, Lena."

"Oh, come on, Will. Please? It'll be fun." She practically crawled into his lap. I caught Kara's eye and mouthed 'help' which made her laugh even if she couldn't rescue me. "It'll be so cute."

"You're cute," he promised as he kissed her gently. The goofy smiles reminded me I was not looking forward to meeting Brian's imprint. "But I don't double date."

"Why not?"

"Because then I'd have to listen to her and not you and I'd much rather listen to you."

Not that he bothered looking up from calculating the cost of lunch as he spoke. Marley just said, "I still think it would be a lot of fun. And it's not like we can double date with Brian and a grade schooler."

"I'm trying not to scare Kara away," I told Marley. "So I can't really have her hang out with Will too much."

"Plus, it's not like she's his girlfriend," Will said cheerfully. "He's still not that nuts."

I kicked him under the table because I could. Asshole. While the two of us were glaring at each other Marlena ended up being the one to notice the obvious.

"Brian's here alone. I thought she was going to come."

"Her parents probably don't want her to go off with strange men," I explained.

"They're related. Ish. They should trust him with her."

Marlena was wrong—Brian wasn't related to Ginger, not even in the way I was 'not' related to him—but neither of the people across from me cared. While the old-timers had assumed Will imprinting on Marlena meant the two of them weren't related there wasn't any actual proof I wasn't sitting at a table with my two cousins who were humping like rabbits (though I'm sure Grandpa would have said something if they were related—maybe). They didn't care—why should I?

"Hey," Brian said as he slid into the booth beside me. "You can all stop looking at me like that."

"We were just going to congratulate you," I said.

"And hope your ribs are hurting like hell," Will added. "Cheating pervert."

"Any louder," Brian hissed as he flushed. "And I didn't—and I'm not—"

"We know," I interrupted. "So we're here to help you figure it out, whatever you need."

Marlena's beaming smile meant that Will would play nice. It's why I had wanted her here in the first place. "So?" she asked. "How did you tell her that she was your imprint?"

"I...I didn't. I can't just tell her that we're soul mates. That's not something you just blurt out."

"Will did," Marley said.

My cousin rolled his eyes, but he couldn't keep the damn smile off his face when he looked at her. "The plan is to wait until she's older to tell her, then?"

"Yeah. I don't—plus, Arthur really likes her."

"You're going to let your little brother bone your soul mate? Brian, you've gone way beyond too nice and into sucker."

I growled, which worked at shutting Will up, if only for the moment. Brian didn't need to be thinking of either his imprint or his little brother having sex. _I _didn't need that mental image.

"Did we really have to eat out?" Brian asked as he looked through the menu, trying anything to divert the conversation. "Tommy needs a new pair of sneakers."

"We're celebrating," I assured him. "Don't worry about it."

Will sighed. "I take it that means I'm paying."

"You are the only one here with a job."

He glared—served him right. Beside him Marlena had perfected the art of selective hearing. She didn't notice or didn't care or...whatever excuse she needed to make to herself. But I had gotten myself thinking.

Because Ginger had been at Dolly's birthday because her father worked with Claire's brother—and Brian needed a job.

"Her dad fishes, right?" I tried to remember.

"Everyone around here fishes," Brian reminded me needlessly.

"And your mom's family could stand to help you out some more."

That was the understatement of the year. Sam didn't have anybody, but Emily had a whole mess of relatives...who had left 'Sam' to take care of all six kids. Sure 'Sam' hadn't asked for help, but they should have done something.

"I guess."

"So if you get a job with them...you make money, you see Ginger sometimes and you don't sit around pining after—yeah. Get a job."

"Just like that? Even if I could just demand someone hand me a job, who's going to look after the boys if I'm up in Makah all the time?"

His dad wasn't bad all the time and... "Francy will be coming home soon."

"Really? She changed her mind?"

The three of turned to stare at Marley.

"Lena, sweetheart, did Fran say something to you? Something important that we might need to know?"

"She just said it was easier to keep her jobs for the summer instead of looking for something around here."

Brian frowned. "She didn't say anything like that to me."

All Marley did was shrug.

"Okay," I said. "Well, even if Francy isn't home for the summer, it's not like Will and I can't show up in the mornings. We already have a patrol schedule. We can arrange something so that there's always someone with the boys."

And Dinah was coming home for the summer, but I was smart enough to not say that this time.

"Plus, Baxter's old enough," Will said.

He was older than the twins had been when their mother died. More than old enough.

We spent the rest of lunch trying to figure out how best to approach Claire's brother and a schedule that worked for all of us. Since Will was busy mostly at nights it was easy for him to show up in the mornings. I could get up before noon for Brian. Quil and Claire might be willing to help us bully her brother. Emily's family did owe Brian _something_.

Since the food was long gone by the time Kara got off, I announced the meeting was over so I could drive her home. Will was in a surprisingly good mood by the time we left, thanks to Marley and whatever her hand had been doing under the table. Hell, when Brian saved her from tripping over her own feet straight into another table Will actually thanked him and didn't make any cracks about children or babysitting.

Since moods like this one were rare, I decided to take advantage of it. Sure, Kara was back in an ugly sweater that hid every one of her magnificent curves, but she still looked kind of adorable.

"You know you're my girlfriend, right?"

She studied me for a long while with her too big eyes. Like most people around here, Kara had brown eyes like I did. Mine were dark brown, almost black in some lights, eyes I inherited from both my parents (and their common ancestor). Kara's eyes were lighter, more like the color of my fur when I phased. Usually they sparkled. Right now they just made me kind of nervous.

I could kill vampires but I couldn't stare down this slip of a girl? I kind of felt pathetic.

"Was that your way of asking me?"

"It wasn't really a question."

"Oh." But she let me pull her closer, trying to find something human-shaped under her damn sweater. "Levi..."

"You can say no," I reminded her.

Whatever she was going to say—it wasn't going to be no—was lost between our lips. I tried to be as gentle as I could. It was a shame she was so damn squeezable. How was I supposed to resist that?

"You really aren't that charming," she murmured as we parted.

"That is also part of my charm."

She giggled, those big eyes still on me. It was like getting hypnotized. I knew there was a reason I kept thinking about her.

Her mother really was going to try to get me crucified. Oh well. I figured a werewolf could take it.

"You know," she whispered, "I've been on my feet all day."

"You want a servant hire a butler."

But I picked her up anyway. It was as easy as picking up my toothbrush in the morning and listening to her squeal made me laugh.

"Thank you," she said as she put her arms around my neck. "You know, a foot massage—"

"Unless you're going to offer to give me one, I will drop you if you continue that sentence."

"You're no fun."

The only reason I did give her a foot massage when I got her back to my place was to stop her ridiculous pouting. And to get my hands on her legs.

* * *

Of course, I would have managed to get a lot further with my girlfriend if my house didn't have an open door policy. Fortunately, it was just Judy, but being able to hear everything my little sister was saying on the phone made it impossible for me to properly pay attention to the girl on my bed.

And I had only just finished getting Kara out of that godawful sweater. Life wasn't fair.

"It's like she has a megaphone against my ear," I explained. I wanted to kill my sister. The buzzing was preventing me from focusing and there was a lot of very tempting flesh to focus on.

"Moms is actually probably starting to wonder where I am," Kara said, sitting up, looking around for her sweater. "I should be going."

"I have ear plugs," I promised.

She giggled, but pulled her sweater back on. Just because we shouldn't give Kim a reason to be pissed at me...I really hated everyone on the rez right that second.

Except Kara and her nicely swollen lips.

I really liked those. I kind of had no choice but to kiss—

"That is so awesome!"

My sister was evil.

Judith was still nattering away when we left my room; little sister didn't do more than wave hello before going back to her conversation.

Of course, when Kara was gone I had nothing to do but annoy Judy.

So I collapsed onto the couch beside her and started poking her arm. She hit me with the pillow as she talked.

"No, that's just Levi being annoying as usual. Don't worry—" A rather evil smirk crossed her face. "Francy wants to talk to you."

She held out the phone until I took it. Not like I could resist the evil minion. "Why are you talking to Francy, anyway?"

"We're planning ways to make Di feel better. Duh."

With a sigh I put the receiver up to my ear.

"Yeah?"

"Levi?" Francy's voice was not as pleasant as it usually was; a storm was coming. "Do you have any idea why Timothy said Brian came home black and blue last night?"

It took me a second to remember that she was talking about Timmy, but when I did I couldn't help the thought: stupid kid brothers. And stupid, _stupid_ Uleys.

"I haven't laid a hand on Brian."

Francy knew the way things worked on the rez too well. "Congratulations. Tell that bastard that the next time he touches my brother I will make sure he never—"

"You don't know what you're talking about," I said flatly.

"Brian didn't mysterious get beat up the day he tells Dinah he's moving on?"

So that's what we were telling her. Life would be so much easier if she just came home so we could tell her the truth already.

"If I went to your house right now I know I'd find Brian in perfect health. You want me to take a picture and send it to you?"

She hesitated, instincts making her incapable of disbelieving her little brother even if I sounded convincing. The practical side of her won out.

"Timothy always did have a big imagination."

And a big mouth, but I didn't say that. All I said was, "Little kids never know what's going on. Do they?"

She was quiet for a moment, then: "I'm sorry for implying you would do that to Brian. I just...I'm worried about my brother. You know?"

I think she was asking more than she wanted to. "Yeah. I do."

"Levi?" There was the Francy that I knew; Dinah's quieter, softer best friend. "If something was wrong, would you...?"

We had practically grown up together. I sort of owed her something.

"I'd tell you to come home. Everything makes more sense when you're at home."

"Home is where the heart is, right?"

"Come home, Francine."

She said goodbye and thank you and apologized for our little miscommunication again—and I knew then Marlena had been right. Francy wasn't going to come home any time soon.


	10. Chapter 10

May was finally here, not that it had any impact on my life, except I now had to fight yet another person for the bathroom since Dinah was home. Like I had expected Francine wasn't. Still, Brian managed to get a job with Ginger's father after a whole lot of begging and the pack managed to look after his family. We didn't need her (well, Brian's job barely paid for the gas to get around so they needed the money she sent desperately, but we didn't need _her_). Dinah also helped us out—the Uley boys loved having her around even if Brian had absolutely no idea how to juggle being in love with her and destined for someone else.

My parents had decided I couldn't just keep lazing around all the time, so Mom started bringing me to work with her. It was mind numbingly boring. I still went. After all, I had finally memorized the forest so there was no point in hanging out there all the time.

Plus, I'll admit the promise of power over the whole town was kind of attractive.

Even though I was an unwilling apprentice, my parents didn't want me working all the time. When my dad came by to walk my mom home they told me to go on ahead while they went over some last minute decisions (could my parents be any more obvious? It was disgusting) and so I was the one who got home first.

To the sound of crying.

Nothing too terrible happened to the door (nothing that couldn't be fixed, anyway) as I rushed inside to make sure Jubes was all right.

"Go away," she ordered.

Please. Like that was going to happen.

I think she realized it too because before I could break down her door she opened it.

She looked terrible. Her face was blotchy, her eyes were red, her hair was a dishevelled mess and there were black streaks all over her face. I felt like I was going to be sick.

"What happened?"

She didn't say anything for a moment, trying to be stoic, but when I hugged her she burst into hysterical sobs once again and gave me part of the story.

"Dan dumped me."

I managed to grab some tissue from over her head and hand it to her as she burst into more tears. I don't think I could have managed that many tears even if the world was ending. The tears did slow, but by that time Dinah had gotten home.

"What did you do?" she mouthed. Jubes was too busy trying not to cry to move from where she had buried her head into my shirt.

After I flipped off Di, I mouthed back what had happened. A rather dangerous glint appeared in my sister's eyes, but she nodded at me. So I had a partner.

Dinah took Judy off my hands; neither Dinah nor I had ever really been dumped but Dinah had just recently come closest. That in itself was mind-blowing. No one dumped Dinah. I couldn't believe someone had been dumb enough to dump Jubes.

They handled the conversation while I hung out on the floor and plotted how I could make Dan's beating look like an accident. He didn't want a girlfriend? I'd show him how important it was to have someone to get you ice for your broken face.

* * *

"Hunting accident."

"Will, that's not going to make her feel better."

Dinah's lecture was ignored. We had asked Will to help so he was helping the best way he knew how. It was just him and Benjamin so Judy was the closest thing he had to a sister (and Dinah, but Dinah didn't need anyone looking after her). It actually made me a little nervous for a second. If someone on the rez could plan a murder and get away with it, my money would have been on the two people beside me.

"It's just a question of getting him into the forest at the right time."

"Stop it," Dinah ordered. "We need to come up with something that doesn't involve us getting locked away."

"We wouldn't get caught."

Ignoring him, Dinah turned to me and Brian. "We have to do something. Something not murderous."

Before I could suggest just maiming the bastard Brian spoke up.

"We just have to come up with something fun to take her mind off of things."

"She's not even fifteen yet. We aren't getting her drunk," I snapped.

"Brian?"

It was all Dinah had to say before her ex punched me in the arm. "What?"

"That's not what he was saying," she sighed. "Idiot."

"What was he saying, then?"

The three of us turned to stare at Brian, who thought for a minute and then said, "Why don't you take her to Seattle for a weekend? Hanging out in the city is fun."

"And then," Will concluded, "She can come home with bullshit stories that will make the little prick feel like shit. And _then _we can shoot him."

I wasn't sure how much I liked the idea of my little sister surrounded by college guys, but if it would make her feel better I could trust that Dinah would never _ever_ let anything happen to Judy. Even if Judy wanted something to happen.

"Having her in Seattle would be fun," Dinah said, beaming at Brian. "We haven't had enough sisterly bonding time since I left for school."

"And Fran could use a day off," Brian said. "She's been working too hard, lately."

If she didn't want to hang around him I think Brian was legally allowed to stop giving a shit about her. But I didn't say anything, which was a good thing because my sister defended Francy and I never succeeded when I went up against Dinah.

"It's not like your father is helping her."

Dinah had decided that since she couldn't be mad at her best friends, she was going to be furious at Sam Uley. And she was succeeding admirably, I thought. She couldn't understand him the way we could, couldn't understand that he didn't have the earth underneath him any more without his wife, that he was just floating around in space and it was damn cold out there. All Dinah saw was the way his family couldn't figure out how to deal with him. And it pissed her off.

In order to diffuse the tension between Dinah and Brian (they had way too much tension between them), Will opened his mouth. Or maybe he just spoke up because he liked making people miserable.

"If I looked like Fran, I'd remember that stripping is a viable career choice."

"Maybe we could pay her to walk around naked."

I really hadn't meant to say that with Brian around, but it was habit.

"Assholes," Dinah (rightfully) declared as Brian growled at both of us for daring to talk about his twin sister that way.

I tried some self-defence. "We're just trying to think of things she could do if they needed more money."

"There is no if," Will laughed.

It had been the best way I could think of to get Will and Brian to be friends again. As much as he complained about his father dumping the finances on him (ignoring how he had wrested them from his mother), there was nothing Will got off on more than handling money. And Brian desperately needed someone to figure out how the hell his family was going to pay for things.

It hadn't worked out quite the way I had been hoping. Will was enjoying spending time with Brian again, but he was also making Brian miserable. Worse, in Will's head he was totally justified. Smuggling was okay in his book, but bad bookkeeping? That was a real crime.

"We're managing," Brian protested.

"No, you're not. Do you know how expensive a drug habit is even when you're not a werewolf?"

Even though he had sounded as close to sympathetic as Will got, my sister did not appreciate it when people talked to Brian like that. "Not all of us started doing speed when we were fourteen, Will. So no, actually. We have no idea how much a drug habit costs."

Since Will did not like discussing any of that with anyone who wasn't me, all he said was, "One of these days they're going to run out of things to pawn. Then they'll finally have to make Fran drop out and kick Sam out of the house if they want to afford to eat."

"Or," I interrupted before Brian phased near my sister, after hearing the two things he was absolutely never going to do. Even without seeing the way he had argued against his sister for the first time in his life so that she would be the one who got to go away, I would have known how important it was to him that at least one of the twins fulfilled their mother's expectations. "Or we make sure the boys are looked after while you work at your new job and you manage like you've been doing."

"We actually need to go pick up the twins and get started on dinner," Dinah said as she stood up, pulling Brian to his feet. "Levi, make sure to tell Judy we have a surprise for her. Build it up—and see if there's anything else she wants, too."

"Sure thing." I waved to the two of them until they shut the door behind them. Then I waited until Brian drove way, well out of earshot before I punched Will. "Can't you shut up around him?"

"But how could he be the perfect son if he didn't suffer the slings and arrows of people like me?" Will's grin faded when he saw how serious I was being. "Oh, come on, Levi. I was helping."

"That wasn't you helping. That was you saying exactly what you knew would piss him off."

"Which, lucky for me, is what he needs to be doing at this point."

I wanted to hit him again except he was actually being serious now. As Dinah had unkindly (but not unfairly) pointed out, Will knew better than the rest of us just what it would mean now that Sam was getting worse. Plus, I didn't need to be good with money the way Will was to know the Uleys were pretty bad with it. The day after Francy got paid, the family needed more money. There was just too many of them.

"I'm the one who delivers bad news from here on."

"It's more fun when I do it."

This time I did hit him. And then I made a mental note to ask my father to forbid Will from taking out Aunt Rachel's hunting rifle. Or maybe not. If my father heard there was a plan to make Dan disappear from the face of the earth then he probably wouldn't stop it.

* * *

Hanging out with her big sister (and her big sister's college-age friends) was exactly what Judy needed. She was only crying every other day now; if she didn't stop soon, I was going to express my displeasure to Dan. With my fists.

Unfortunately, my two sisters hanging out meant they came back armed and evil.

"So, how come you didn't tell me you had a girlfriend?"

Dinah always had a strange resemblance to Satan, but it was even more pronounced that usual. Judy even looked away from the TV to better watch us. Mom said to start dinner, so Dinah was doing that while I supervised from the table, but apparently my big sister could cook and annoy me all at the same time.

I really hated Di's ability to multitask.

"It's none of your damn business. That's why."

Unfortunately, Dinah did not have my respect for people's privacy.

"How long have you been together?"

This time I flipped her off and wished all the paperwork Dad had told me to learn was actually interesting. And that it opened portals to other dimensions.

"I've already told her _everything,_" Judy announced, abandoning the television for the more entertaining show of Dinah tormenting me.

"Traitor," I muttered.

"You and little Kara? If I knew you liked babysitting so much, Levi, I would have gotten you a job."

Since I hung out with Will so much—and now looked twenty-five—I think most people on the rez forgot I wasn't his age. Technically, I would have just graduated and Kara would be a junior next year. She was just so short she looked younger than that.

"Hilarious, Di."

She just gave me the same shit-eating grin that had tormented me most of my childhood.

"They're so cute," Judy squealed. She was so lucky that I couldn't hit her without killing her.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me," Dinah complained.

"Yeah, I can't believe I didn't want to have this conversation with you before I had to."

"What? Don't you like talking to me?"

"Di...gimme a break."

"You ruined her first five dates with Brian," Judy reminded everyone needlessly.

"Accidentally." The first time my cousin had business nearby, the second and third really were accidents and after that...I had to keep up my streak. "Come on, Di. There's nothing to talk about."

"If you're dating her, you must see a little more than nothing in her. Have you introduced her to Mom and Dad yet?"

"She's Jared's kid. They've known her since she was conceived."

"Chicken shit."

Damn straight. I was not going to let my parents ruin anything.

"They know everyone around here. You still have to bring her over to meet them."

"They haven't said anything."

"That's because they let you get away with everything," she complained.

"Do not."

"Yeah. They always have. Just because you're a guy."

"Shut up. They do not."

Judy interrupted. "I think he's trying to distract you."

My older sister laughed. "True. Just for that, I'm going to tell them to invite Grandma over, too."

"She'll want to meet your girlfriend for sure," Judy said.

"And disapprove of her."

"Grandma wouldn't do that."

Dinah and I just laughed at my younger sister, because I don't think my mother's mother did anything but disapprove where I was concerned. But when we stopped laughing, Dinah got serious.

"Ask her over to meet thme, Levi. She'll like it."

Why anyone would want to have dinner with the crazy people that were my parents was beyond me, but when Di got serious it was time to listen. I figured she would know a few things about being a girl.

"I'll think about it."

She snorted. But before she could make fun of me some more, my parents came home. They had thoughtfully taken a dip in the ocean before coming home. My poor nose was very grateful.

"Did any of you start the oven like I asked?" Mom asked.

"Levi forgot."

"Dinah didn't tell me."

"Hey, if you don't mind waiting, I don't care." Mom was all heart. "But those who forgot to turn on the oven set the table."

"Why doesn't Dad have to help?" I complained as my father took the chair I had to vacate so I could help Dinah with the table.

"It's called working. You should try it."

"Mom has to cook."

"That is a very good point," my mother said while my father scowled at me. Served him right. If I had to perform slave labor than he should, too. "At least pretend you're helping, Jake."

"Judy and I are supervising."

"Yup," my sister said cheerfully as the two of them did their lame secret handshake. "And Levi's putting the forks on the wrong side."

I was too distracted pushing Dinah around the table to protest my innocence; she started it. Plus Dinah knew how to push back. Except when I almost knocked her into my mother, Dinah got mean.

"Levi wants to invite Kara over for dinner."

My father just laughed (and shot me a slightly sympathetic look) while my mother smiled. "It's about time. Honestly, Levi, we were beginning to wonder if you'd ever do it."

Judy decided she felt left out, not getting to pick on me: "And he wants to invite Grandma."

"We don't want to intimidate the poor girl," Dad interrupted. I owed him one—or a thousand. "Your mom is plenty scary on her own."

"Mom isn't scary," Judy announced. "Unless you deserve it."

"Here that, Leah? Your daughter thinks you aren't scary." Most people would have said Dinah was the one who was most like Mom—I don't think Dad would have.

"At least someone around here isn't a coward."

Dinah and I exchanged a look—it wasn't cowardice if it saved your life.

* * *

I had to formally meet Kim first (it wouldn't have been so bad if Will would just stop laughing so damn much) for some reason. Dinah said it would help make Kara less nervous and I had to prove to everyone I was not scared of the five foot nothing Kim.

Brian gave me some notes and I think it turned out okay. We didn't really have much to say to each other; I didn't ask her why she got paler every time she looked at me, just tried to answer her questions as politely as I could.

There was a lot of talk about plans for the future that telling her I was going to run the La Push pack did not seem to satisfy. "That's a lot of responsibility," she murmured.

If Dad did it, how hard could it be?

Being a werewolf was still the easiest thing I had ever done. I was damn good at it, and not even my girlfriend's mother could make me doubt that.

Unfortunately, since I had survived Kim, I had to bring Kara over to our house.

Yeah.

My sisters refused to leave (which I guess was a good thing because I could not double date with my parents—I couldn't even double date with Will and Marley) so the six of us had to sit around awkwardly. Unfortunately, there was no awkward silence—my parents had known her since she was born so they had plenty of things to talk about with Kara. They did awkward conversation instead.

It didn't help that while Kara didn't like talking very much, there was no one in my family who couldn't blather on for eternity.

Once my Dad got started on how he had fixed up Kim's car, he just kept going.

"Jake," my mother had to finally say after I spent minutes staring at her, silently begging her to do something, "Why don't we talk about something else?"

"I was just getting to the best part," he complained.

"He was," Judy agreed. "I wanna know how he gets the engine going again."

"You're boring her stupid," my mother hissed too low for anyone but us werewolves to hear. My father replied, "Then what do you want to talk about?"

Then my mother made it a thousand times worse.

"Kara, do you know how to use a belt?"

"Uh...yes."

Even though my girlfriend looked to me for an explanation, I had no idea. Well, I had an idea, but my mother would not embarrass me like that. Not at the dinner table. Not in front of everyone.

"Do you know how to take off a belt?"

"Yes?"

"Good." There was no hint of laughter on my mother's face. That was the worst part. This was a death threat. "Here that, Levi? If she wants to she can take off your pants herself. Otherwise, they better stay on."

Oh for the love of—

My father put one hand on my wrist, forcing me to calm down. No phasing at the dinner table after all; it was the first thing they had taught me about being a werewolf. Across from me, Kara was redder than the lipstick Judy was not old enough to be wearing.

Dinah came to my rescue. "Kara, how are you liking working at the diner?"

She should help; this hell was her fault.


	11. Interlude

Interlude

* * *

Jacob Black owned three cars the year his only son turned seventeen. One didn't have an engine, one didn't have tires and the last one was being held hostage by his wife. For those reasons his eldest daughter had almost been unable to drive to Seattle the way she wanted.

Almost.

There was always the unwelcome thought in the back of Dinah's head that she was doing something wrong when it came to her younger siblings. The Blacks weren't like the Uleys. Those boys practically worshipped their big sister (to the point where Dinah could tell it made her best friend uncomfortable sometimes) and would have started a fan club for Brian if they had been allowed. Levi and Judy tolerated her, teased her, but didn't seem to need her all that much. They seemed to prefer their cousin to their sister and while Will would have let her blame him the way he always did, Dinah knew the fault was somehow hers. She wasn't sure _how_ she had done it, but somehow she had screwed up.

But she wasn't going to let that stop her.

Judy was upset. Judy needed to be cheered up. The only thing Dinah could think of was to take Judy to Seattle.

Therefore, Judy was going to Seattle.

The End.

Too bad borrowing Will's car meant enduring torture in exchange.

"You can stand under my umbrella-ella-ella-EH-EH-EH...you can stand under my umbrella..."

The worst part of Marley's impromptu karaoke was that Judy was getting into it. Very into it.

"Where did you find this stuff?" Judy demanded when the song came to an end. The beat from Marley's music seemed to have entered her bloodstream; the young girl couldn't stop bouncing in her seat. "It's, like, the most amazingest stuff ever."

"I know, right? My mom had these boxes of old CDs hidden in our basement so Bert digitized them all for her. It was the only thing in our car one day so I got stuck listening to it and I suddenly realized it was the best road trip music ever!"

"Totally," Judy giggled. She was supposed to have a broken heart (and she did in the moments when she was lying in bed but wasn't asleep, feeling more not good enough than lonely) but she was too caught up in the moment. "What else do you have?"

"Did you know Justin Bieber had a bunch of albums when he was a little kid?"

"Really?"

"Swear. You wanna hear them?"

"Yeah."

And Dinah would have thrown Marley out of the car for daring to blare that kind of crap, but Judy was smiling so much it looked like it had be painful. Maybe she couldn't do the big sister thing right, but Dinah figured she could at least not make it worse. If Judy was smiling...bring on turn of the century crap.

Even Judy's enthusiasm for everything faded eventually. It was four hours to Seattle, after all, and she had been so excited about getting to spend time with her sister that she hadn't slept much the night before. Before they reached the national park, despite her best efforts, Judy was sound asleep in the back seat.

"Turn it down," Dinah said.

Lena didn't protest the command, though she rolled her eyes (to herself; Dinah was driving and scary, after all). The old music was only fun at loud volumes, so she flipped to something else. Even though she had also been up most of the night before, she figured she should at least try to get Dinah to stop scowling at the road. It couldn't be good for the other girl's face.

"So what are we going to do when we get to Seattle?"

"After we stop by the house to see Francy, I'm going to give my sister a tour of campus."

"Seriously? Doesn't that sound kind of boring? I always figured that if I got dumped I'd want to be with a bunch of people."

When Brian hesitated, when it finally occurred to Dinah that she had gone too far this time, that maybe they weren't going to someday magically get back together after all, all she wanted to do was be alone. The absolute last thing she would have wanted was to get stuck in a car for four hours with her cousin's vapid girlfriend.

But Judy hadn't minded when informed Marley was crashing their sister time. She'd been excited. Happy. So Dinah did not kick Marley out of the car.

"You're not Judy."

"I guess not. Listen, Di, I'm not trying to ruin your plans or anything. I just wanted to see Fran and I didn't really have another way of getting to Seattle."

Did that sound kind of insulting? Lena hoped not, but Dinah could get offended by just about anything. Lena didn't mean to be insulting because she would have liked spending time with Dinah (sort of), she was just getting the distinct impression that the other girl did not want to right then and what could she do then?

"You won't ruin my plans. Maybe my eardrums, but..."

"Oh come on," Marley teased. "You know you love it. Weren't you the one who introduced me to Katy Perry?"

"I was trying to throw that out."

"Suuuure. I believe you."

* * *

"That's where you live?"

Dinah looked a little hurt, so Judy looked at the building again. It wasn't as bad as she had originally thought. Sure there was tape on one of the windows and and the paint was peeling, but there were a whole bunch of clichés about not judging a book by its cover, or whatever, so Judy just decided that maybe she should wait until they were indoors before she said anything else.

"Ew," Marley whispered.

"It's cheap and ours. You can sleep in the car if you don't like it."

And since Dinah was not joking, the other two girls were silent when they followed her inside. They even let her call out hello.

The room they found themselves in seemed decent sized—until it became obvious that was supposed to be both a kitchen, a dining room, a family room and a study all at once. Still, Judy liked the look of the couch, there was a working television and Dinah had found the kitchen had enough room to cook in. The heat worked and that was really all you could ask for.

"What are all you doing here?" Francine asked as she came out of her room. She smiled—and then winced when Marlena almost wiped out on the carpet, rushing forward to hug her.

"Okay, the carpet moved."

"Sure." Fran helped her stand up so they could hug properly. "It's so good to see you. And Judith! You're all...stop growing up."

"Dinah's trying to make her feel better," Lena whispered.

Francine didn't have a chance to ask what had happened because Judith was coming forward to say hello and Di was avoiding eye contact. Di hadn't called Seattle since she went home after exams.

"So this is where you live," Judith asked, all wide-eyed and adorable. It was impossible not to smile back at her even though the rooms didn't deserve her enthusiasm. "Cool."

"You want a tour?"

"Sure."

Francy let Dinah talk because that's the way they worked.

"Kitchen, living room. The door in the middle is the bathroom, the door on the left is Francy's, the door on the right is my room and...that concludes your tour."

"So Levi was totally right to mock you?"

"He lives with our parents, so no." Dinah felt her mouth twitching. "A little bit."

"It's cheap and ours," Francine reminded the room. "You guys here for long?"

"The weekend. I'm giving the kid a tour now and then I figured we could meet up for dinner and then...whatever, after," Dinah said. "We'll figure it out."

"I..." Finding someone to cover for her on such short notice was going to be a pain, but Fran tucked her long black hair behind her ear and smiled and did not think about the tips she wasn't going to be getting. "Sounds great. Judith has to come to school with us, so her stay has to be perfect."

"I'm coming here no matter what," Judy promised.

"Don't tell us that yet," Fran warned. "Let us bribe you first."

"Oh. Right."

* * *

Dinah had never given much thought to the caffeine content at the coffee shop. That turned out to be a very bad idea because halfway through the mochachino her already energetic little sister was bouncing up and down. Well, at least she was happy.

"And then Levi said he'd think about showing me a vampire if they could figure out how to get one into a cage and then I could look and they wouldn't hurt me and wouldn't that be so cool, almost as good as getting to be a werewolf, well, not really because they have whiskers and that would be—"

"Judy? Maybe you should keep the wolf stuff on the down low?"

"I can keep a secret."

Well, she didn't have a lot of practice with that. Her friends didn't bother with them because everyone always seemed to figuring everything out, anyway. Telling Dad was just the easiest thing in the world—and besides, it would be a betrayal of the super secret Daddy-Daughter Handshake of Epic Awesomeness to not tell him—and once she told her father she didn't want her mother to feel left out. Dinah always seemed to know everything, because no one could not tell Dinah things, and then Levi was just a really good listener so...

"Sure, kiddo."

"It's true. I keep lots of secrets."

"Name one."

"I never told you Levi and I read your diary back in high school."

"Did you really?"

"Yup. And you were working on a project with Brian and he was trying to do it all for you and you were really annoyed."

The laughter bubbled up before Dinah could stop it. That to have been ages ago. Maybe back in their freshmen year when she and Brian weren't quite the perfect team yet. He was smarter and in love with her and she hadn't quite worked out how to not take advantage of those two facts.

"And you never told me."

"Never. Well, not until today. So you see, I can keep secrets."

"I know you can. You didn't tell Dad about Dan."

That felt subtle, right? Dinah hoped so.

Subtle or not, Judy's face fell. Asshole. Lucky asshole, because if Brian hadn't been in the room Dinah would have let Will shoot the bastard. Who cared if it wasn't exactly _right_? It wasn't right that Judy looked hurt like that. Sometimes you had to get dirty to do the right thing.

"Do you think Dad's mad I didn't tell him?"

Judy just hadn't wanted her father to think that she was too grown up to hang around the garage or take for ice cream just because or...anything. Mom said not to tell, too, and a girl was supposed to listen to her mother. But the thought that her father was angry (worse, that he was hurt) made her feel a little nauseous.

"No way. Have you ever seen Dad mad? Assuming Levi's not around?"

That got a tiny giggle out of the younger girl.

"After Uncle Paul told me about the wolf stuff he starting yelling."

That her uncle had managed to get around a twenty year old Alpha order accidentally didn't make much sense, but then, Dinah didn't quite understand werewolves.

"Yeah, but Dad's never going to be mad at you. Even if you did something to the car...well, I'm sure you could fix it before he found out."

"True." Judy gazed at her big sister, looking for the truth. "Do you think...you think that's why he didn't like me? Because of the car stuff and...you know? You think I'm too boy-ish—"

"If he thought that, then he's an idiot." High school, Dinah remembered clearly, sucked. High school boys (and girls) never appreciated the stuff that really mattered. "I can't see why someone wouldn't like that you knew about cars and football and things. Dumb and Dumberer seem to think it's the greatest thing ever that you know all that."

"Yeah, but they're related to me. They have to like me."

Since the list of people Levi liked was a very short one—and Will liked his brother, her brother and her sister and that was it—there was a very obvious flaw in Judy's logic. But the younger girl didn't care about logic right that second.

"You'll find someone who likes _everything_ about you. It just wasn't Dan."

It could have been, Judy was sure, if she just looked like her older sister instead of...some kind of baby that liked rolling around in grease.

"Yeah."

"Hey, Judy," Dinah snapped in the voice that meant you had to listen to her or else. "You will find someone so much better who likes all the amazing things about you just the way you deserve one day. I promise. Okay?"

"Okay."

Dinah always kept her promises; Judy found herself sitting up just a little straighter. Habit, maybe, but it felt nice.

"Does this mean you're going to take me to meet college guys tonight?"

"Over my dead body."

* * *

Francy and Marley were in the middle of giving each other manicures when the sisters returned home. While Dinah wanted to point out they were setting women's rights back by, like, twenty years by being such stereotypes, Judy looked excited. In the interest of not having her little sister hanging around college guys (who were, if such a thing was possible, even worse than high school boys) Dinah decided that tonight was going to be stay in and do stupid girly things that she would die before admitting to doing.

Marley got started on Judy's toes (and giving a detailed tutorial on how it should be done) while Dinah slipped into her room to change into sweatpants. The door closed behind Francy. There was a solemnity in the action that Dinah noticed immediately. It was not going to be a fun conversation.

"Marlena has bruises up and down her arms."

Dinah stared down her reflection in the mirror. She hated this, hated how everything in her life had always revolved around Levi and now it wasn't just her brother, it was Will and Brian, too. How in the world was that fair?

"He wouldn't hurt her. If she's bruised, I'm sure it was an accident."

"That's what she said. And then she started talking about him like…like he's some kind of _god_. It's...it's weird, Di. Something's up with them."

It was more than weird. Those were most definitely bruises on Marlena and how was that ever supposed to be okay? Just because William was better than the others (because he never offered to show her what a 'real man' could do, just threatened to humiliate her for kicks, he was better? Francine was furious that she had to lower her standards so much) didn't mean he deserved the benefit of the doubt. Not when Marlena was acting like she had been brainwashed.

But Marlena promised everything really was as wonderful as she described. Marlena, who couldn't act her way out of a traffic ticket, seemed like a girl truly, madly, deeply in love. With William. Francine couldn't shake the feeling that she was missing something _huge_.

"Things are weird on the rez right now."

Things had been weird for a while. Fran sighed.

"You really think there's nothing to worry about?"

"Did I tell you he was clean now?"

"Yeah. Marlena said something about that, too. I still can't believe it." The hope that sprang up in Fran was quickly squelched, though she still ended up asking, "You think...you really think someone could just stop like that?"

She was thinking about her father, Dinah knew, but Francy didn't know that Dinah knew and when did things become so complicated that she had to pretend that she didn't know this huge secret that was eating away at her best friend?

"No."

"Yeah," Francy sighed. "Me neither."

"But I figure if he was hurting her Marley would accidentally blurt it out well before it got serious."

Francy managed a smile. "I guess. She better be all right because I don't have time to cheer while you kick his bony ass."

Somehow it had never occurred to Dinah that Francy might not recognize Brian when she got home but it did then. Why should Francy recognize him? The twins had been almost the same height back in September—now Brian was a few inches taller than Dinah, who was closer to six feet than guys thought a girl should be.

Will was no longer the rail thin walking PSA he had once been and Levi was no longer the broad bodyguard beside him because now when people stood beside Levi the shadow he cast made it hard to see them. Hell, Levi might have been even taller than their father now. It was hard to tell, with the way Dad carried himself, but Dinah was pretty sure her brother was ever so slightly bigger. Not that she was going to tell the kid—the power was already going to his big head. Also, no one was taller than Jacob Black.

"She seems fine. You can spend the rest of our girly night from hell interrogating her."

"I think I will." Francy was laughing again and Dinah was pleased with herself. "Hey. Thanks for inviting her. I know you probably didn't want to but...I don't see how anyone can be upset around her."

Even before she had heard of werewolves and packs, Dinah knew that in times of crisis everyone banded together. It wasn't something she had to be taught—it simply was. So when Emily died, the community gathered around the Uleys and offered their help.

It wasn't her brother or her best friend that had gotten Francy through losing her mother. It was the airhead in the other room. It hurt to think about, so Dinah tried not to even if she was aware she had liked Marley before Emily Uley died. Something had broken back then and she could blame Marley and Emily, Levi and Sam, the werewolves and the tribe, the drugs and the alcohol...but in the end, Dinah knew their sisterhood had crumbled years ago and they had never figured out how to recover properly.

"I didn't invite her. Will wouldn't give me the car unless I took her with me."

"And you gave in?"

Actually, Dinah had refused. She'd even sworn that she'd rather walk to Seattle then allow Marley to ruin sister-bonding time. And then Will had gotten too serious (the way he sometimes did that stopped her from ever just writing him off) and explained: "I'm indestructible. The worst anyone can do to me is break a perfectly good baseball bat. But bad things might happen to a pretty girl when the people around her are indestructible and need to be taught a lesson. Do you understand, Dinah? Do you...no, you don't, because you're an idiot. Why do I bother? Just take Lena to Seattle, okay?"

While she might have hated what Will did, hated the world he revelled in where his girlfriend was just an extension of himself and not a person with feelings of her own, Dinah also trusted that he knew what he was doing (even if she hadn't, she wouldn't have risked anything happening to Marley). So after Levi promised Will really was trying to quit (he was practically retired, Levi swore, but an old friend had recently come back around and they needed to square a few things and, Di, can't you just do him a favour just this once?) she got Marley the hell out of town.

"It was the only way to get the car."

"You could have hitchhiked."

"My sister turns fifteen in a month. I'd like her not to get brutally murdered before then."

There was a sharpness in Di's voice, Di who didn't approve of walking home by yourself early in the morning even though you really _couldn't_ afford anything else. And because Fran couldn't explain why she kept doing it despite knowing the statistics too well herself, she changed the subject.

"Have you thought about what you're going to get her yet?"

"She always likes it better if Levi's picked it out. He'll think of something; I'll pay for it."

"At least you have a system."

There was something comfortable about Francy's smile, so Dinah let herself laugh. How bad could girl talk be?

* * *

After Marley handed over the bottle of pretty decent quality vodka (bless her) and Dinah was generous when mixing it in with the orange juice, it turned out that girl talk was simply wonderful. And not only because she was slightly buzzed. There were was also something nice seeing Judy laughing about bad movies and the trials of college life and lots of things that weren't Dan. It was even kind of sweet seeing how excited Marley got over her graduation plans (had it really only been a year ago that she had done the same?).

"And all of you are going to the cottage?" Judy asked as Fran braided her hair.

"Yeah. All the old gang."

Like Ray. That was going to be awkward—she had mostly avoided her ex-boyfriend for the past while, but Lena suddenly found herself missing him just then. He'd been such a sweet guy, writing her little poems, sending her funny little jokes to make her smile, learning to bake cookies just because she said they were her favorite...she felt guilty, a little bit. Will would do everything for her, if she asked. But Ray had liked taking her to school dances and hanging out with all their friends and just...it was different.

Though Will was better looking. Sure, his cousin had the better body, but above the neck he was undeniably the best looking guy on the rez. And no one had ever loved her as much.

"Just you guys?"

"Some significant others, but Daddy wouldn't let me go if Will comes, so I will be all alone."

"Why won't he let Will come?"

"Because he thinks we'd just spend all weekend—uh..."

Why wasn't she like her little brother who never said a word unless he thought he could change the world with it? Dinah Black could kill her—and probably wouldn't feel all the sorry about it, either. Since Judy was still looking at her expectantly, Lena hurried to say something else.

"It just occurred to me that I'm only ever going to have two boyfriends. Doesn't that sound sad?"

Fran got as far as opening her mouth to laugh—Brian was the only guy around their age who was remotely mature enough to get married—before she realized the Black sisters were acting like Marlena should be taken seriously. Oh. Di was right. Things were more than a little weird back on the rez.

"No it doesn't," Dinah said. If she hadn't been such a bitch to Brian then...even knowing that he was supposed to move on Dinah couldn't stop herself from believing that everything would work out for the two of them. They were Dinah and Brian. No one else could possibly understand her the way Brian could. "I only planned to have two."

"Do you miss him?"

And if anyone but Judy had asked that Dinah would have thrown something or screamed or...anything that wasn't lying back on the couch and admitting, "Yeah."

"Sometimes people just grow apart," Francine tried. When Dinah came back from Christmas determined to get Brian back, she had been ecstatic for her brother, who was still hopelessly devoted. But if Brian wasn't interested, well, Dinah had dumped him despite Francine's best efforts to explain it wasn't his fault (without explaining what wasn't Dinah's business) and there was nothing to do but try to get them to be civil to one another.

"Like I don't know that," Dinah snapped.

And because the tension between the older girls made her uncomfortable, Lena interrupted: "Will says Brian's still in love with you. He says it's annoying."

Judy gave her a tiny kick, but Fran had assumed that was just another way of saying everyone on the rez could see it. No one was giving away any hugely important secrets. Even though Dad said the real reason they weren't allowed to tell Fran was to encourage her brother to get her to come back. Lena was all for having her friend back around, so she tried to keep her mouth shut.

"That doesn't mean anything. He's got someone else now." Dinah had been in love with him with when she broke up with him in September. Even if he loved her now, he had Ginger. What kind of name was Ginger? Sounded like a dog—and, wow, she had to stop hating a little girl.

"Dad sort of has someone else. The—oh, what's her name?"

Francine stopped braiding, glancing around the room in horror. Uncle Jacob had—?

"Something stupid," Dinah vaguely remembered. Her little sister was a genius. It was embarrassing how _light_ she suddenly felt. Dad had an imprint, but he was also with Mom. So what was stopping her and Brian, really? Nerves and fear, but those could be overcome easily. All she would have to do was...

Lena, who had noticed Fran's bulging eyes, now returned Judy's earlier kick. How were they supposed to fix this? The younger girl shrugged. They were both thankfully when a phone went off, providing the perfect distraction.

"Sorry," Francine said as she quickly texted back.

"Who is it?"

The smile gave her away; Lena answered. "The boy."

"The man," Dinah corrected. "The old man who has one reason for dating someone seven years younger than him."

"You're such a romantic, Di."

"He keeps cancelling on you unless you can spend the night."

Di took it personally the way Fran didn't. She understood he really was busy. If she got lonely, which she didn't (she never had, she didn't think she ever would), she had Di. She had enough boys in her life, anyway.

Judy asked: "Does that mean you're sleeping with him?"

Fran finished up the last of the braids. They just had to be pinned up and then the crown would be complete.

"Yes, Judith."

"What's it like?"

Lena couldn't quite hide the giggles; Dinah finished her glass and poured herself another. They were going to kick her out of the big sister's club. Having a sex talk with her sister might have been okay if Judy would just stop knowing stuff already. Fourteen was far too young to go to third base. Dinah had waited until she was...fifteen? Ugh. It had sounded older at the time. Why couldn't all guys be like Brian? If they loved you (if they met the minimum standards of human decency), they should know how to BACK THE FUCK OFF.

Brian even asked before he kissed her the first time, after the two of them had slipped away from her sixteenth birthday and he told her she looked beautiful (he stammered, turned bright red). Somehow just then he wasn't Brian-her-best-friend, Francy's-other-half, he was just Brian, awkward and safe and kind, and so she said yes. And then she shoved her tongue in his mouth because he looked damn good in that shirt.

Lena was having a blast answering Judy's questions despite having never done anything like this before—Bert never asked questions, just quirked an eyebrow when he really had no idea what was going on. The kid was awesome, he really was, but he was happy in his little bubble and Lena had always not-so-secretly wanted a sister. Maybe one a little less mean than Dinah, but she would take what she got.

"And it helps if he's older, so he's knows what he's doing," she remembered. Not that Ray hadn't been super wonderful, but she hadn't had enough time to figure out quite what was going on the first couple of times and she still hadn't quite forgiven him for the disappointment.

"Though not too much older," Dinah interrupted. "Actually, stick with someone your own age."

"So it was good with Brian?"

Everything might have been strained between them, but Dinah could still count on Francy.

"Please, Judith, don't make me listen to what she did with my brother."

And so Judith let the subject go. For now. Beside Marlena Dinah was going through the bottle a little fast but she gave a small smile of gratitude and seemed okay, so Francine let her concentration drift back to pinning up Judith's beautiful hair.

"There. Someone give us a mirror."

"I look like a cooler version of Princess Leah," Judy declared once she had examined her hair from all angles. "Awesome."

"Me next," Lena called. The girls shifted positions so that the two sisters were beside each other on the couch. Lena and Fran were discussing possible hair styles while Judy begged permission to paint her sister's toes. With a wave of surrender, Dinah relented and relaxed, though she took the glass from her little sister's hand.

They talked of everything and nothing in particular, usually whatever popped into the younger girls' heads first, but it didn't really matter what they were talking about. Time had passed and they weren't the chubby little girls who were forced together at all sorts of ridiculous barbeques; they knew now that just because they all thought tag was fun they weren't going to be best friends forever. But despite how they had changed they all remembered the old games. It was reassuring to catch up again.

"And how's Kara?" Fran asked. If Lena hadn't assumed the older girls had known (_someone_ had to have told them, right?) she probably would have answered differently. But she thought they knew so...

"Off doing whatever with Levi."

The sputtering and coughing occupied all their attention for the next few minutes. Lena would have sworn that Dinah was going to choke to death, while Judy pounded on her sister's back and tried to ignore the gross liquid all over her. Water was coming out of Dinah's eyes, but eventually she managed to breathe again.

"What?" she croaked.

"What?" Marley echoed.

"Kara's with Levi who?"

"Levi's the only Levi for miles," Judy said, puzzled. "Though they can't be doing anything too...even if Kim works all the time, Kara's half his size. Wouldn't he crush her if they were having sex?"

"I'm sorry," Fran interrupted, giving Dinah time to stop freaking out, "But since when do...I thought we were talking about Kim's Kara?"

"We are."

"And she's with Levi?"

"They're going out," Marley said, grabbing her own drink. "For a couple months now. I could have sworn I told you."

"You didn't," Fran promised. "I would have remembered something that...unexpected."

"They're kind of cute in a totally weird way. Not that I've been out with them, but _whatever_. They are. I think I even heard her talk once, when he was around."

"Going out?" Dinah repeated dumbly. "Levi's going..."

She couldn't even complete the sentence. The idea of her little brother dating anyone was so ludicrous she was losing brain function (or maybe that was the booze). But Levi didn't...Levi hit on disease-ridden randoms at party's the cops inevitably ended up busting. He did not date. He really did not date little Kara.

Who had to be around Judy's age—great. Her brother who looked almost thirty now was going to get himself thrown into jail for statutory rape.

"I'm sorry," Dinah said. "My brain has currently entered a parallel universe where nothing makes fucking sense. Levi's dating? Like...dinner, movie, hand holding, meet the parents—"

"They haven't done that but most of the other stuff, yeah," Judy chirped. "And he walks her home from work everyday and they talk on the phone all the time and—"

"But Kara? _Really_? Is anyone else having trouble picturing Levi with someone—" STD free "—sweet?"

Judy protested. "Why can't Levi be with anyone sweet?"

Sometimes he was a bit bossy and he was always really super annoying, but Levi was also kind of awesome so why couldn't he be with whomever he wanted?

"Because he'll run right over them. Because he..." Because someone had to convince him listening to Will all the time was a dumb idea and Dinah couldn't picture little Kara in the same room as Will, let alone standing up to him. If Dinah could manage she knew it would be hilarious, but she just couldn't.

"She makes him really happy," Judy said, which just made Dinah's headache worse.

Levi always had better taste in girls than the whores he fooled around with suggested (hadn't he liked Francy during his freshman and sophomore years?), so it wasn't totally out of left field. No, even then it was totally out of character. Unless Levi had stopped being a superficial jackass...the thought was mind-blowing.

"I still don't get how he goes from Marely to Kara but...sure. Good for him." Dinah found herself meaning it.

"You knew he used to like me?" Lena asked. Just remembering made her laugh again. She and Levi had always been a little (a lot) flirty even though they could have been cousins.

"He is my brother. And Will bitched about it constantly. The joys of their co-dependency issues."

"Don't I know it," Lena sighed. "I feel like I'm dating Levi too, sometimes. If he hasn't just left Levi, he's going to Levi or talking about Levi or—ugh. We can't even go out on a date unless he clears it with Levi first."

"Yeah, but that's because of the pat—"

It hurt when Dinah pinched like that, but Judy realized just in time that she wasn't supposed to say that patrols were more important than dates. Oops.

"Have you tried talking to him about it?" Dinah hurried to say.

"Or reminded him that threesomes have incest free clauses?"

It wasn't that Francine hated the boys. She had avoided William most of her senior year because she was ashamed of what he knew, not because she hated him (he never went near her brothers and that's all Fran could ask for). Besides, when he disappeared that summer she was reminded that it was better the devil you knew. And she never came close to hating Levi, had just been annoyed at the awkward position he had once placed her in (his very obvious pining had been embarrassing and there was nothing she could do about it without offending Dinah, who wouldn't have forgiven a word against her little brother). But it was easy to understand a young boy's misplaced hero worship for his big sister. So she didn't hate the boys.

She did think they could stand to be made a tiny bit uncomfortable at least once in awhile.

"You were right that it totally freaks him out so much that I get at least twenty-four hours of Levi free time every time I mention it," Lena said happily. "But I don't want to abuse it. Even though...I mean, I love Will, it's just, Levi's pretty ripped and—"

"Okay," Dinah interrupted, "So I have just discovered the one thing creepier than thinking about Levi with a little girl is thinking about him with our _cousin_."

"Kara's older than me," Judy pointed out.

This weekend was not the time to make Judy feel like a child Dinah realized. Unfortunately, she wasn't sure what to say. Fortunately, Marley interrupted.

"Is anyone else starving?"

So Dinah had no choice to admit bringing Marley hadn't turned out so badly after all.

* * *

The younger girls slept in that next morning, Marley in Francy's room, Judy in Dinah's, but the couch was not comfortable and the floor was even less so. Ten minutes after Dinah woke up, Francy leaned over from the couch.

"You awake?"

"No. I'm in the middle of a REM cycle."

"The beauty sleep isn't helping."

"Oh shut up," Dinah laughed quietly. It wouldn't do to wake up anyone. But she relocated to the couch. "My back is killing me."

"I told you I would take the floor."

"Uh huh."

But Dinah was the Amazon and Francy was built like the ultimate damsel in distress, always too fragile looking, a dancer's willowy frame without the firm body, and there was no way in hell Dinah was going to let her take the floor.

"I hope Judith is all right," Francine said.

"She'll be fine. He's just a guy."

"Still. It always hurts when something that was so good becomes..."

For a moment the two women stared at each other as Fran gave up searching for the right word.

"This?" Dinah asked.

Fran sighed. "Di, this isn't the time."

"You've been saying that since we were sixteen."

"What is it you want to talk about?"

"Levi's friends with Brian now," Dinah blurted out. Why start there? Who knows? She had to start somewhere and it seemed like as good a place as any. The boys came first now, after all. "They both got into that weird little boy's club our father's always had. So, Levi knows what's going on at your house. And he told me."

"And what's going on at my house?"

At Christmas it had seemed reasonable to wait for Francy to make up her own mind to tell. Forcing her to share seemed cruel. Months later, Dinah came to the conclusion forcing her to keep silent was even worse.

"I know about your dad."

"What about my dad?"

It was reflexive. Francine knew better than to lie to Di.

In response, Dinah rolled her eyes.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you." Fran meant it, even if she would never have told if she'd been given the choice.

"Why didn't you?"

Weren't they friends? Were the years of sharing secrets (secrets Dinah only ever told Francy, secrets she made even Brian learn second-hand) absolutely nothing?

"Because this isn't something you can _fix_, Di, just by scowling at it. On top of everything, I didn't want you mad at me for not...I don't know, flailing around to your satisfaction."

"So you're just going to stand there and wait for everything to magically get better?"

"No. It—it doesn't get better." Scars never faded. They just were. "You just...you deal. That's all you can do. I didn't want you coming in and saying otherwise because..."

When Francy broke off, fanning her eyes, keeping the tears at bay, Dinah almost wanted to laugh. Once upon a time it had been Dinah's bad habit, that fear and pride that made it so hard to cry in front of other people. Maybe Francy was right; maybe it was better they stayed apart.

"I'm just going to be disappointed when he doesn't get better."

Leaning over, Dinah hugged the other girl, until Francy finally gave in and started to cry. She did calm well, but stoicism had never been her thing, even if the sobs were muffled so as not to wake their guests. It wouldn't do to frighten the younger girls.

Quietly, between the tears, Francine admitted, "I miss my Dad."

Dinah had no idea what to say to that. Judy would find another replacement for that immature little dick but this...even shooting Sam Uley wouldn't make Dinah feel better. Well, it would, but the twins (the Simon and Theodore to her Alvin, the Ron and Hermione to her Harry, which meant she had to look out for them) wouldn't appreciate it.

"You've still got me," she promised because it was the only thing she could think to say. "Even if you think I'm a judgemental bitch."

Fran couldn't help laughing, a little, as she pulled away.

"I prefer to think of you as demanding."

"Well, I'm going to use that vaguely offensive comment to segue into demanding you tell me everything you've failed to tell me lately."

The doors were closed and it was still early in the morning, so they weren't likely to be interrupted. Francine hesitated for a moment, but finally started to speak.

"At first, it wasn't so bad..."


	12. Chapter 11

_Even elbow deep in dirty water she's beautiful, frowning at the grease that won't come off the plates. I'm sure she can feel me watching her, she always does, but she doesn't look up. There are things to do, after all._

"_I'll dry," I offer._

"_Thanks."_

_Di has a smile that could melt steel. It's too warm, most of the time._

"_Brian, when did the Depression start?" Tommy always tries to cheat on his homework._

"_That's what the textbook is for," I remind him. Beside me Di is rolling her eyes because she knows..._

"_Please?"_

"_1929. Black Thursday. October 24."_

_I can hear his furious scribbles. The twins are busy at the table; they'll be done soon enough. There isn't much work in sixth grade, though it doesn't feel that way at the time. Baxter has homework but he complained it was May and he wasn't going to bother—it's enough that Dinah managed to get him to come home tonight. He's been staying out late nowadays (with friends he'd never have told Mom about), so I'm not going to push when he is home._

_Besides, I haven't done anything about the way Dad hasn't moved from in front of the television since he got home from work (he made it to work today—I'm too proud to care what happens next). If I'm going to let Dad stay in front of the TV, then I have to let Baxter stay there too._

"_Thanks, Brian," Tommy chirps. "Now who was the president?"_

_Tommy's the youngest (by five minutes) so I can't say no to him._

_Dinah can._

"_It's in the textbook. You can find it yourself."_

_From the other room I can hear giggling, where Arthur tries to show off his drumming skills for Ginger and things don't go as well as planned. I'm supposed to drive her home soon; my cousin will let me sleep up in Makah so I can get up early. There are some benefits to being able to sleep anywhere._

"_Isn't there anything for desert?" Baxter demands from the doorway._

"_No," Di says. But he's hungry and things aren't that bad that I can't feed my brothers._

"_There's a bag of chips above the fridge, if you want."_

_From the other room my father calls, "Shouldn't you be getting home soon, Dinah?"_

_He never used to mind her hanging around—well, she was my girlfriend back then. Now she's...she's Dinah. Of course she still belongs here. Even Dad can't say otherwise, even if having her hanging around makes him nervous. She's only polite to him for the sake of the boys and he knows it. Maybe that's why he's worse on the days she comes over._

_He's better when the guys are around. With Levi I think it's a wolf thing, trying to stay upright in case the Alpha's son wants something from him. I really hate how my father puts more effort trying to appear fine for Will than he does for us. But when Dinah is around it just reminds him of how much has changed and what we're never going to have._

_Because my father's words are slightly slurred, Dinah ignores him. She always waits until Francy calls and she's not going to let Dad run her out before then. My sister is punctual; at eight fifteen the phone rings and Timmy sprints to pick it up. We all know the routine, so I leave Timmy describing his latest imaginary quest to Francy (he was a soldier, struggling to rescue hostages in the middle of the jungle—my sister is going to kill me for letting him watch_Rambo_) while I go tell Ginger we're going soon._

_My brother is the one who blushes when I open the door to the boys' room, even though he's been fending off her...suggestions. Good boy. I would hate to have to kill my little brother for being disrespectful. While my imprint collects her things I escort Dinah outside._

_The porch light needs to be replaced so the only light is from the half open door. We pretend it's because she can't see (as if she hadn't been here a thousand times before) that has Dinah holding onto my arm._

"_Levi's taking care of breakfast, but I'll be by for dinner tomorrow?"_

"_Thanks."_

"_It's no trouble at all."_

"_Ginger won't be here tomorrow."_

"_She's not bad." The light catches off her teeth when she smiles, making her look rather demonic. "She's a sweet kid."_

_I'm pretty sure she's lying, simply because Dinah doesn't tend to find people sweet and if she does she rarely tends to admire them for it, but it's hard to think when she has her arms around my neck._

_Not for the first time I wonder why she has to be so tall._

"_You really think you'll fall in love with her?"_

"_I guess." I'm not giving it much thought; there always seems to be something else to worry about. Dad's pay checks are getting smaller and disappearing faster. Francy's sending almost as much money as Dad used to make but I'm not Mom; I don't know how to make it be enough with so many of us. And Mom didn't have to worry about Dad not coming home (_nothing_ would have stopped him from coming home to her)._

"_But you don't love her now."_

"_Darling—"_

"_You probably should stop calling me that." And she has her fingers in my hair and I can feel her breath on my face and I'm so aware of her lips less than an inch from mine that I forget there's anything else. "Not that I want you to. You have to know—I don't want you to ever stop."_

"_Di..."_

"_We still belong together."_

"_I imprinted. That girl in there is my future, my—"_

"_She's a little girl, Brian. And I know you don't like little girls."_

_It's been awhile and she's all I can think about most nights so of course I can't pull away when she pushes her body flush against mine. There was a time when she'd do this and I'd marvel at how right it felt. Nothing's changed about that. It still feels right, how soft she is against me. It would be even better without all the clothes._

"_She's not going to be a little girl forever."_

_Dinah shrugs. What's a little thing called destiny?_

"_We'll deal with that when the time comes."_

_"Don't ask me to do that to you—or her. Please, darling, don't ask me..."_

_We both hear Ginger coming; Dinah sounds perfectly calm as she says, "If you change your mind, just let me know. Do you need me to pick up something for dinner?"_

"_Uh...no. I've got it."_

"_Then I'll see you tomorrow." When Ginger comes out on the porch, Dinah has a smile for my imprint. "See you around, kiddo."_

"_Later," my girl says with all the bratty nonchalance she can muster. I'm so glad I'm not twelve anymore. "Bye, Artie."_

_My kid brother blushes and stammers goodbye. He has even less game than I do._

_You have GOT to get better at hiding your thoughts,_ I ordered Brian. Then I told him to go home so I could finish the patrol by myself. He had to meet the boys after school and I had a lot of denial I wanted to get into.

* * *

I though I was too disturbed to enjoy myself, but miraculously Kara helped me to forget about...well, everything. I was very impressed with us.

"That tickles," she murmured.

It wasn't my fault—she was ticklish everwhere. And if my fingers suddenly had no choice but to focus their attention on her side, I blamed her too soft skin.

We were going slower than Brian at his most chivalrous. It wasn't fair. Nor was it fair that she always got to be on top (things would have moved a lot faster if I didn't weigh twice as much as she did, have almost two feet on her and, oh, could crush her one-handed if I stopped paying attention for even a second). But unfair was what I was stuck with. Marley knew what she was doing and she still got banged around. I just couldn't risk Kara like that.

So I was stuck finding other ways to entertain myself.

At least she was getting more used to being progressively less dressed. She was almost naked as she lay on top of me, chin propped up by her hands, giving me a very nice view of her very nice chest.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yes. You can get me something to eat."

"You are much less funny than you think you are."

But she was smiling, so as I traced her lips, I reminded her: "You think I'm damn funny."

As usual, she did not appreciation my wit.

"I still don't get what you were saying about Brian and your—the person he is not with." Good girl. "Why would he think he's going to leave her for Ginger?"

"What does it matter?"

"You keep talking about it. All that time pretending to listen, I guess I finally thought I should try paying attention."

"Cute," I said, rolling my eyes. Okay, so she was kind of adorable when she tried to smirk (it just didn't work on her). "I don't get it either. But then, I'm the only one without an imprint. Hell, I don't even have imprinted parents."

Duh. I couldn't believe it took me that long. If you wanted to get the Uleys to do anything, all you ever had to do was say Emily's name.

"Brian has two modes," I explained. "Listening to Dinah and listening to his parents. This is the first time they're contradicting and it's making him have a bit of a breakdown."

Kara seemed to find this explanation acceptable. Or maybe she just couldn't resist me because she wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her head against me.

"I don't know what I'd do if Moms didn't like you," she murmured.

"Fortunately, my wit is irresistible."

Her hair was draped across her back, the strands looking almost like fingers caressing her. If that wasn't a sign, I don't know what is. I had to caress her shoulder, then her back and then that full ass...

"It just doesn't stay down," she sighed.

"Not around you."

She totally found me witty.

"Moms is coming home soon. You have to go."

"Do you know how dumb I'd look if I phased now? Hell, it might be a safety hazard."

"It's already a safety hazard according to my mother."

"And you were worried she wouldn't like me."

Because she was wonderful, Kara gave me a hand.

* * *

When I got home it was to find that Brian was not the only one who disapproved of Dinah's plan to get back together with him regardless of Ginger's existence. In fact, I had never seen my mother so loud (she got sharp and scary, but rarely did she get loud).

"This has got to be the dumbest idea you've ever had!"

"Dad has an imprint. If you can do it why can't I?"

"It's not the same thing!"

"Why not?" Dinah hadn't broken a sweat yet; my mother was close to hyperventilating. Where was my father? Someone had to tackle her away from my sister...Judy wasn't home. He must be with her. "I don't see much difference, except you needed to read his mind before you could trust him."

I snorted at the burn, but tried to turn it into a cough because, boy, could my mother glare.

"I think I'm old enough to make decisions about my life," my sister announced.

"You're a little girl playing with something she doesn't understand."

"And exactly how am I supposed to understand, Mother? It's not like you all tell me anything. You just dump this whole werewolf thing on my like it's no big deal."

"There are other ways of telling us you feel left out then going after an imprinted man!"

"Who still loves me."

"It doesn't matter. You don't understand. Imprinting means he will leave you. He will leave you for _her_."

"She's just a _kid_. He's not interested."

"For now." My mother was calmer now. "Sweetheart_,_ I know it's hard to understand, but one day she'll be all he can think about. Brian might love you now but he's looking forward to loving her."

"Brian has always been there for me. Always." Dinah finally started looking like a messed up scared kid like the rest of us. "That's more than you can say."

"Dinah—"

"You're supposed to be the Protectors of La Push, right? So how come you _suck_ at protecting us? How come you let those boys stay with Sam when everyone can see he can't handle them anymore? How come you haven't done anything about the way Francy can't come home because when she's around the rez those creeps her father owes money to keep_watching_ her? How come you didn't throw Will in rehab after the first month, instead of just standing by and letting him get more and more involved with those freaks? And before that..."

She took a deep breath. "Will wasn't lying, was he? When we were kids, all those things he'd say, that you said were just his imagination, they were true, weren't they? That's child abuse. He's your nephew and that's child abuse and how come you didn't fucking do anything?"

"That's not fair—"

"You were so busy dealing with all your supernatural crap you didn't give a shit about the real world—well, that's the world I'm stuck in. And in that world Brian loves me and I love him. So I don't care what you say."

And then she stormed right out of the house.

My mother said a few things that left me rather impressed and then snapped her mouth shut. Then she went to make very, very sure that dinner was dead.

She was fast, but I was close enough to the door that I risked it. "You okay?"

"Am I wrong?"

The sunlight coming in from the window hit the knife in her hand perfectly, forcing my attention away from her and onto the gleaming steel. I had no choice. It was better than looking at her face, anyway.

"No. But she's not wrong either."

My mother snorted and just like that I was laughing. I wasn't even sure why, except I couldn't really see myself as a philosopher.

"Nessie didn't want him," Mom said finally. "We sent her away when she was young and by the time she came back she had no interest in any of...La Push was far too small for her. We don't know what would have happened if...who knows what Ginger will be like? What if...?"

"I wouldn't take it personally." Let it never be said I was sympathetic in a crisis. "Dinah's just pissed Brian turned her down."

"Not that she doesn't have a point," Mom said, ignoring me. "The great Protectors of La Push—ha! What have we managed to do right?"

"Hey. I turned out okay." And when that didn't seem to convince her, I added, "At least Judy's normal. Ish."

"Hey!" Of course my sister magically appeared just then. I had better ears than that; proof she had access to demonic powers (or that Dad was still giving her piggy backrides). "Who are you calling an ish?"

My dad broke up the fight before it started, telling us to set the table while he went to figure out what was bothering my mother. I mostly tried not to eveasdrop. Sort of. Not that Dad did any better than I had, especially since he didn't think Dinah was wrong to go after Brian the way Mom did. I would give him that.

"It's her choice, Leah," he said eventually, when Judy had started watching TV.

"She's choosing wrong."

"Did you choose wrong?"

She rolled her eyes (not that I was spying on them). "Of course not. But no one is as pig-headed as you are. Brian's a sweet boy but he's not...he wants the imprint. So she's choosing wrong."

"Then we let her chose wrong," my father said with Alpha finality. "They're alive, Leah. _That's_ our job, why we have fur and fangs. Keep them alive. What they do after that isn't on us. You aren't responsible for fixing everything that's gone wrong around here for the last hundred years."

"She's a child, Jake. She's...they're all children."

"So were we."

"We should have done more. We should have fixed Seth, we should have stopped Paul, we should have helped Sam, we should...she's our daughter. We can't let her—"

"You don't save people who don't want to be saved."

"And just let their children deal with the consequences?"

"The last time I checked, Seth doesn't have kids. Splitting up Sam's kids right now would traumatize them—plus, the twins aren't children anymore. Let them at least try to handle it before you going charging in there like you know better. And we would have had to knock Rachel out before she'd let us take away her husband or her son."

"And Will was lying to Di."

Both my parents glared at me. What? Clearly I was listening. No point in pretending otherwise. I had made a good point, too, one my cousin would have been pissed if I hadn't brought up. As a kid, he liked making shit up (so imaginative, my aunt bragged when she was feeling up to it). The stuff that had actually happened he didn't talk about to anyone but me; even then it took a lot of booze first.

"Because even as a child we drilled it into him that telling the truth about his father was the absolute last thing he should ever do," my mother snapped. "We did it to all of you, didn't tell you what was going on, just that you had to hold your tongues no matter what."

"You had to keep the pack secret."

"No, we didn't."

My father looked apologetic after he spoke, but keeping your mouth shut was not a Black family trait. He thought it, so he said it.

"We could have told you," he said slowly. "We talked about it. A lot. We just couldn't agree and then it was too late."

"Why didn't you tell?"

My mother answered. I think it might have been because Dad couldn't, because he had wanted to tell us the truth a long time ago. And agreeing with my father was creeping me out, so I hoped I was reading the situation wrong.

"It's complicated, Levi," Mom said.

"I can read your mind."

"It wasn't just the decision of a moment. It took us years to make up our minds. And I don't know even know…no, I do know. I just…I don't know how to explain it."

"Show me, then. Please?"

My parents had a telepathic conversation. When they broke eye contact, Mom gestured for me to follow her outside. Then she showed me all the things she couldn't say.


	13. Chapter 12

_We don't tell because..._

It took my mother a second; she tried to organize everything, but it was a long story and we didn't have all night. If she wanted to protect me it wasn't going to work. It wasn't easy keeping secrets as wolves, not for most of us. She started where she felt she could.

_Will is the oldest._

_We think Sam is going to be the first to have children. Somewhere deep inside Jacob expects it be us for no reason whatsoever except that instinct tells him he should be first, but instinct can't make things fact. Sam and Emily are so stereotypically in love that it seems the two-point-whatever kids will just pop into the photo shoot with them one day._

_Only they aren't first. Paul tells us reluctantly because Rachel calls the clinic every week for twelve weeks. She hangs up before anyone answers then doesn't talk for the rest of the day (retreating isn't considered fighting in our books and I don't think Rachel realizes what she's doing, but put a girl in a cage and she has to do something; running away worked for her brother). Eventually, Paul gets her to smile, gets her to laugh, gets her excited about being first. It just takes him some time (we don't age—we have time)._

_With days to go Emily tells everyone she's going to be next. There's a time (twenty-three hours of labour, to be precise) where we think Emily might be first after all and the pack gets Paul out of the hospital but not before he frightens three of the nurses half to death. Emily clings to my hand until my arm goes numb from clinging back because being first means_nothing_._

_Rachel lives. Her boy lives._

_(Three years later they find out what their miracle cost them)_

_Will is the oldest._

_Sam and Emily are next, of course. Sam used to be an Alpha; more than that he's Sam and he leads the way as best he can. They want children to complete their happy, perfect life. Of course they have twins; of course the twins are a boy and a girl. The perfect couple needs the perfect family and they get one right away (I am jealous but only in a wistful sort of way and then I don't care at all because I find out I'm pregnant right before Emily gives birth)._

_When I tell Jacob (after making Carlisle run my blood twenty-three times—twenty-three times and then the ever patient immortal politely tells me to fuck off) he silently disappears, no congratulations, no recriminations, just turns and walks into our bedroom without a word, leaving me more than slightly pissed. And terrified._

_He comes back in with a ring and then asks if that means I'll finally marry him. What can I say to that? I say yes and we're so busy being happy that it doesn't matter who has beaten us to it._

_We tell our children we were married the year before—it sounds better and it's almost true. We've been inseparable since I became his Beta but we didn't know how to explain that to anyone, not even to each other, so we move our anniversary up a year and don't feel guilty about it at all._

_"Making up for last time?" Paul snorts when they find out I'm pregnant the second time. "Did he even wait until Dinah was out before he stuck it back in?" Jacob breaks his jaw even though...stupid Paul._

_The pack is exploding with children. We like new life._

_But babies don't stay babies forever._

_The pack turns to the stories. The stories say to keep it secret, the way it was kept from us up until our own skin rebelled against us. Jacob might be the Alpha, but tradition stills his tongue. Tradition and us._

_Emily says she doesn't want to give her children nightmares of vampires hiding in the forest. I say I don't want to intimidate kindergarten children when someone inevitably talks. Rachel is too busy packing up the baby clothes she isn't going to get to use to participate in the debate._

_Ten. We'll tell them when they're ten. It's a nice round number, old enough to keep a secret, young enough..._

_No, not young enough._

_Will is the oldest._

_By the time he's ten, we can't tell Will._

_"You have to tell him," Rachel snaps at the men and wives gathered in her living room after they've been talking for hours (she's having a good month, this month). "He's known something was up since he was three. Tell him."_

_There are different ways of knowing things. Jacob knows me better than I do because he's learned through tireless trial and error when to tease and when to push and when to growl and bare his teeth (when he can get away with sneaking kisses, when to lock the front door). Seth just smiles and feels what people need. It's the most annoying thing in the world, the way my younger brother doesn't even have to try. Though sometimes...sometimes when I don't want to tear the world to pieces I can understand too, not just my brother but everyone else. Sometimes when I look at Judy—Jacob's daughter, so much his daughter it hurts to love her so much, Judy who smiles back easily, like I'm perfect, like I'm whole, wonderful and warm and caring and kind and thoughtful darling Judy—I think, no feel, that maybe the girl is a tiny bit mine as well._

_Will doesn't know like that—ten years old and he can define empathetic but he treats it like a foreign word. He's Rachel's boy except for the temper, careful planning and desperate determination and a tendency to see the worst. He's seen how his parents are barely keeping it together and how we mindlessly defend each other and how no one cares at all about the scars on Emily's face. He hasn't just seen how strong his father is even though Paul would never hurt...Will adds everything together to know what we have to hear._

_He tells his mother he fell._

_We want to keep him innocent in whatever way is left._

_(And the temper…)_

_When the twins turn ten Sam and Emily say they are too young. They would have nightmares. The shock would destroy them. The twins are too sensitive, too sweet._

_(Emily caught her reflection in the mirror; how does she explain what happened? Why he got angry, why it didn't matter? Sam doesn't know either. None of us know how to explain it—we just understand it)_

_We don't tell the twins._

_Can a child of ten keep a secret from her friends? How much were we willing to bet on it? The pack? Never the pack. It went against everything we were to risk that. But our daughter isn't a threat or a liability. Our daughter can handle the truth—even at ten she is calmer than a child should be. She is confident and strong (she's even punctual). We aren't sure how we got that lucky, but we know our daughter can be trusted. If Dinah became a werewolf the boys wouldn't call her a bitch. They would call her Alpha (well, they would call her a bitch, too, but there would be respect in the word)._

_But it isn't about Dinah. It's about all of them. Sam and Paul and Emily are against it (Rachel is thinking about leaving all together and we lie to her and say it might be possible). It would be easy to over-rule them all but Jacob doesn't want that. This was never a dictatorship. I mostly run La Push because Jacob is not letting this turn into a dictatorship just because he can kill vampires better than the rest of us._

_It stays a secret._

_Embry's daughter is next, Embry's daughter who can't keep a thought in her head for an instant. Even Jacob doesn't argue for telling Marlena when the others don't know._

_And our son? We want to tell our son but he pours sugar in the gas tank the day before his tenth birthday and there isn't even a discussion because Jacob is running it off in Canada._

_I almost tell Levi anyway because when he grins he looks just like his father used to and there's no resisting that stupid Black grin...but if we tell Levi then we have to tell the others. Screw the others, I sometimes say, but Jake knows I don't mean it. They are us—what they want, we want._

_And somehow...each year we find the question keeps getting pushed back._

_Are we ashamed? Maybe._

_Rachel thinks the truth makes it too obvious she just gives up sometimes. Emily wants to keep her husband's secret. I don't want my children to know I'm a freak, Daddy's second choice._

_I—_

_Yes._

_By the time Judy is ten—Judy who would have accepted anything her Daddy told her—it's too late._

_Rachel's boy is getting out no matter what he has to do (we don't know about the pills until later). The twins have more important things to worry about (Emily is tired lately and no one is quite sure what the problem is but everyone knows it's not good). Dinah has her hands full with her best friends (Dinah could have handled the news on top of everything; I think I might be jealous but settle for bragging). Marlena still can't keep a secret (she never learns; Embry's embarrassingly proud; it's kind of sweet). There's no point in telling Kara about the father she doesn't know (sometimes Sam and Paul wonder what Jared would have wanted, but in the end they just let Kim tell the story of the handsome boy who sat beside her in school). Bertie could keep a secret, even if he's just eleven, but we aren't going to tell our secret to a boy who will do no more than blink in response (and Marian is always just a little bit nervous around us—I blame Jake)._

_And Levi...Levi is thirteen and somehow I've lost him._

_I don't know what I did. We comb through our memories then chalk it up to puberty though it still doesn't make sense. My always smiling boy isn't smiling anymore. I can barely keep track of him—would I see him if he wasn't always hungry? I'm afraid to ask._

_Jacob is the one who spoils them rotten and I'm the one who tells them to go to their rooms—it's what we're used to with the pack, so it's second nature with the kids. But Levi never used to mind, used to love me back anyway._

_And then he doesn't and I can't figure out why._

_"I was a pain in the ass when I was thirteen," Jake shrugs. He's confused, but doesn't seem to be worried that our son is hoping we die._

_Our son is not a pain in the ass._

_But there's no denying that there is something wrong with the boy. All the boys._

_From Will to Bertrand to Timmy and Tommy to all the little boys who are too young to know just yet, there is something wrong with our boys. They get older and suddenly they end up like Levi, furious and alien, or like Brian, quiet and crushed. It doesn't seem right, either way._

_It's easiest to see with the twins because they appear the same at first. Both are hard-working, smart, polite, kind, quiet—but when something goes wrong Brian panics and then just gives up. His sister isn't a fighter either but she doesn't sit around, waiting for orders from on high to fix everything. It's bizarre and _wrong_ and why isn't he the only one?_

_There's something wrong with the boys (something wrong with my darling baby boy who used to run to me when he skinned his knee and now won't talk to me when he comes home with a black eye)._

_What are we doing wrong?_

_With the girls it's different and not just because there are fewer of them. I can like my daughters without worrying they're going to transform without warning. And I do like them. Their jokes are funny, their kindness amazes me—they are people I would like, regardless of relation. There's a fire in Dinah and Judy that I recognize. They light up when they're happy and scream when they're mad (Dinah screams silently, but I hear my daughter anyway; I try to remind her I'm there, even if she doesn't want to tell me what happened)._

_Do I owe it to them to tell them the truth?_

_It's too late, of course, but we wonder if we did the right thing just the same. It's Jacob that reassures us all because he's the Alpha (because he's Jacob—he does it just to annoy me. I don't need more reasons to love him, but the idiot just likes racking up points). He says that it's better this way; our children won't end up feeling like they owe us or the world anything (we never did figure out who we were supposed to protect first). They can do whatever they want now that they don't know. Even though he was the one who wanted to tell most of all, Jacob is glad that our children are free to go off and do whatever they want._

_So we try to believe that._

_Will might not be going to class, but he shows up to ace every test. Dinah and the twins are already planning where they're going to live when they go off to school. Marlena has a boyfriend who adores her and Embry is slowly accepting that he'll treat her just find. My son is a little confused about what he wants to do, but he has all the time in the world to figure it out. He's a bit brilliant (Judy might be Jacob's girl, but sometimes I feel that Levi might be the most like his father, because the only reason Will hasn't gotten him killed is because my boy knows how to protect his own. In him is a faithfulness that I don't think even Seth has and it's beautiful)._

_They will do great things._

_Well...maybe not great. Rachel has to beg before they let Will graduate with that many absences (does he stay because of the drugs? We put the pack before a little boy, so I don't get to try to understand a young man who rightfully hates us all). The twins have taken Emily's death hard, very hard, but not as hard as Sam (suddenly the only thing keeping that family together are two children who are about to fall apart; the more we try to help the faster Sam gets worse)._

_Somehow the family holds. Every time I go over Sam watches his memories instead of his children, but no one else seems to have noticed because the twins are trying to be the people their father would have wanted them to be._

_Brian breaks my heart. I can't even look Francy in the eye._

_Emily's girl haunts me. Not because her smile never seems to reach her eyes—she was always like that, determined to keep her happiness secret, the way she keeps her father's secrets now. No words of recrimination spill from her lips._

_But she's beautiful in the way I used to be back when I wanted to look just like my older cousin._

_Looking at Francy I see a world without vampires, without spirit warriors. A world where Sam loved deeply but not without reason, a world where Rachel got out like she wanted and Paul was only as strong as he wanted, a world where we never had to figure out if saying nightmares were real was the better course of action._

_(We're supposed to protect people, so how the hell did we let Emily die? What's the point of being able to fight monsters if we can't fight what really matters?)_

_I would still pick this life, I know, but that doesn't make the what ifs easier to deal with._

_On those days, only my family helps._

_Dinah is getting a scholarship, not because she was born lucky but because she works harder than anyone I've ever met. Levi is mouthy, but he's started smiling at me more. When Jake's not around he's better, so I start keeping them apart and then I wonder when I turned into Rachel and if I should have been nicer to her before because keeping them apart really is the only thing to do. We still aren't as close as we once were, but that's normal, I guess. It's okay. I'll take what I can get._

_And Judy is still happily listening to her Dad and her uncles and all the other men she has wrapped around her long fingers._

_I think Jake must have been a wonderful child because I know I didn't do anything to deserve them._

_(He tells me there was nothing more we could have done for Emily and because he's Jacob I slowly start to believe him)_

_Maybe I jinxed us. Or we were cursed a long time ago and I'm just a fool for forgetting sometimes._

_Will is the oldest._

_He phases first._

_It's just a matter of time before my boy is taken too._

We phased back then. My mother was exhausted and I was a little overwhelmed. A little embarrassed, a little angry, a little disappointed—I don't know what I felt just then, but when my mom came out of the forest with her clothes on I thanked her.

"I'm sorry I was..."

"You were great," I promised. It wasn't often I got called brilliant. "I—I'm not sure you were right but..."

"We weren't sure we were right. We just..."

This was totally lame. Even when I thought my parents were the greatest (not that—for those two minutes when I was three, or something) I never thought they were perfect. They were too weird to be perfect. So even though I didn't think they had been right, I wasn't angry about what they had done. They had tried; I saw that clearly. Today I would let that be enough.

"So you and Dad totally weren't married?"

After my mother graphically described what would happen to me if I told my sisters that particular information, I agreed that maybe it should stay private.

* * *

My pack brothers had the reactions I expected when I related the fight the next day (I kept Mom's explanation to myself—somehow, I knew that was just meant for me and I was going to keep it that way). Brian felt terrible, guilty for hurting Dinah who might have hurt my parents just to get back at him and delighted (though he tried to hide it) that he meant so much to her still. Will just laughed.

_Does this mean she likes me now?_

_Doubt it_, I promised. Since we were finished patrolling, I asked, _Where do we want to crash?_

_As long as you don't eat, you're welcome at my place, _Brian said. _Credit card bill came yesterday._

It was kind of weird to see Brian rebelling, even if it was only in a small way. In the world according to Sam, Will should have never been allowed in his house. Maybe my plan hadn't been so stupid after all. If Will was going through their finances at Sam's house, Brian was showing his dad drinking had some obvious unpleasant consequences—and they couldn't hide them all under the rug. Some got to sit right at the kitchen table.

Since I was the fastest, I stopped off at the store to pick up some food. Buying extras was easy enough because I could carry everything. By the time I got over there, Brian had started on the kids' lunches for tomorrow and Will had set himself up at the kitchen table, surrounded by who knew what.

"This scene of domestic bliss is heart-warming," I couldn't help but say.

Will flipped me off without looking up; Brian didn't say thank you when he took the food from me. Ungrateful bastards.

"Shouldn't you be done by now?" I asked Will. "How long does it take to write out numbers?"

They owed a lot of money (though Will magically refrained from saying Emily should have done them all a favour and died faster) and instead of paying it back, they were spending what they did have on useless things (defined by Will as Sam's habits, Francy's school and food). That meant the next week they owed more money instead of less and one day they were going to owe so much that…Will said I didn't want to know.

"The trick is to get the numbers to shrink despite Brian spending money faster than the drug addicts I know."

This time Brian was the one flipping Will off.

"The boys need things."

"Then they should get jobs."

"I thought Baxter was looking for a job?" I asked Brian.

"Levi, he's just a kid. He needs time to hang out with his friends."

I wasn't quite sure what Will was doing (I couldn't follow most of it and the rest he promised it was better if I didn't know; on the phone he could do a great Sam Uley impersonation) but I knew he was spending a lot of time doing it, so I figured that having Baxter lazing around enjoying life was out of the question.

"Hey, Brian, you don't want to tell him everything, that's fine. But he's got to know something's up. I'm sure he'd want to help." The whole clan of them was stupid about doing their duty—Brian was bored stupid fishing, but he did it because it helped. "Let him help."

"Just like I should keep letting Dinah help?"

Will and I exchanged looks—we did not talk about our feelings. Especially about girls. But Brian looked like he needed it so I tried. Ugh.

"Do you...um, do you not want her around?"

"Of course I want her around," he snapped. "I just...I want her more than just around." Then he sighed and buried his head in his heads and wondered what was wrong with him.

"You know what I don't get?" Will asked. "Why is it that when I ignore what my girlfriend says she wants and she ends up happy, I'm a jerk, but when you ignore what your ex-girlfriend says and she ends up miserable you're just being noble? How is that fair?"

"That's..." Brian shook his head, trying to clear it. "That's not..."

Since Brian actually looked like he was going to get taken in by that, I asked, "Have you ever put anyone in the hospital?"

Will laughed, conceding the point (Marlena had nothing to do with why he wasn't considered La Push's favorite son), while Brian just looked at us, confused. I wasn't sure I liked Will suggesting that we should take Dinah at her word. She really didn't know what she was asking to get into. Even if Brian was never going to be able to resist her.

"I'm not trying to be noble," Brian insisted. Sure. "I just...Quil waited over ten years for Claire. I can't wait maybe six years for Ginger? I...I don't want Dinah to ever be a way of killing time."

"My mother isn't a way of killing time."

But the two of them didn't look convinced. I guess being the only guy there who hadn't imprinted meant my opinion didn't count.

"Your mother wants Dinah around me even less than I do," was all Brian said. "I can't believe...I never heard of them fighting like that."

"Me neither."

I would have liked to keep it that way.

"They'll make up," Brian promised me. "They're both just a little too stubborn, sometimes, but they'll be fine."

"Yeah."

I wasn't sure I believed it, but my brooding over moody women was interrupted by Will almost choking to death. "Why did you spend almost two hundred bucks on flowers last month?"

Brian went back to the sandwiches, already knowing Will wasn't going to be happy. "Francy's boyfriend's grandfather died. Since she couldn't go to the funeral, she wanted to do something."

Since Francy was in Seattle, Will was stuck glaring at me, like it was somehow my fault she wanted to be there for her boyfriend in whatever way she could. I never should have told him she wasn't so bad. He was never going to let me live it down.

"She couldn't have just given him head?"

"Hey!"

I tried to position myself between my two very annoying pack brothers as Will explained, "It was just a joke. Relax."

"It wasn't funny."

"Will's never funny. Just ignore him. And put down the bread knife."

Brian glanced at his hand, only now aware of the weapon he was brandishing. Not that we needed weapons. That was the whole point—we were the weapons.

"You need to get laid," Will surmised. After Brian put the knife down, of course, because while we could survive getting stabbed no one was in hurry to experience that.

"That will magically solve my problems?"

"Can't make them worse," I realized. "You want us to take you out? Find you someone who isn't underage or my sister?"

Brian snorted. "The girls flock to your sensitivity?"

How did he guess our secret?

Since Will was too busy laughing, I explained everything. "Seriously. Will talks to them for half an hour, forty minutes tops and then—"

"They're so enamoured they go home with both of you?"

"By then they're so pissed they'll do fucking anything with the next guy who comes along."

Girls had a tendency to leave Will's company determined to prove something to him (or maybe they were just trying to recover some of the self-esteem he had trashed). I had scored with so many chicks like that it was unreal. And all I had to do was show up at the right time, call him a couple names and not ask how he did it.

"That doesn't bother you?" Brian asked slowly. For the first time it occurred to me that maybe it should. I would have beaten the shit out of anyone who talked to Kara the way Will talked to those other girls.

"We could do it some other way," I offered. "But maybe you should think about it. You need to blow off some steam."

He did not seem convinced, but eventually he did say: "Maybe. If...maybe. I don't know. I just...I wish I could figure out how I felt about her."

"Don't we all," Will muttered. Not quietly enough.

"So if Levi's busy taking home the girls you've been talking to all night, what happens to you?"

"That's why they invented roofies."

It took Brian a second.

Then he sighed: "You would like I'd be used to you by now."

"You're in a good mood," I observed.

My cousin said, "First time since I was a ten that I don't have a job. I think retirement suits me."

It had been more complicated than that, but Will had never liked talking about it, especially with Brian around, so I let it go. If he said he was out, he was out. That was good enough for me.

"You going to celebrate retiring?"

"No. My girlfriend's father hates me. He won't let her go out tonight and he might actually put up bars if I sneak in one more time. And she's going away for that stupid grad thing on Thursday...it's like the universe doesn't want me to get laid."

I cursed the universe. Being around Will while Marley was gone for a week was going to be a bitch.

"It won't matter soon enough," Brian pointed out. "How long are you going to make her wait?"

Will shrugged while I shuddered. I couldn't believe he was thinking about getting _married_. I couldn't have imagined anything funnier.

"She won't be happy, but I figure if I buy her a nice enough ring she'll hold off until Benji's bigger...I don't know. I'll figure something out."

I laughed. "Do you really think 'look at the shiny ring so we don't have to get married yet' is actually going to work?"

"Yes. Not that...you're the one stuck dating Kara. I don't need advice from you."

"That's the charm she can't resist?"

Because I was laughing at him, my cousin had to attack me. And because we were distracting him from being responsible, Brian had to try breaking us up. And because we were werewolves, it just became a free for all.

Nothing got broken. Nothing important, anyway.

There was nothing wrong with the boys of La Push.


	14. Chapter 13

"There's been an accident."

Those were the worst words ever. Well, the words after them were worse.

"Marlena's dead."

Not that I cared if it made me a horrible person, but I was relieved. In the instant between my mother's opening gambit and reality I had imagined a lot worse. Than the reality caught up with me and stabbed me in the gut.

"Marley's what?"

Now I was awake I pushed the covers off of me as if that would make the words coming out of my mother's mouth make sense. It didn't help I was exhausted. I had just gone to bed a few hours ago. Hell, I had just seen Marley a few days before, wrapped around Will as usual as they said goodbye. It was gross. I complained it wasn't like they'd never see each other again...

"There was an accident," she just repeated.

"Does Will know?"

Her face told me that he did. "He's at home. When Sam...it's better if he's not in public right now. Paul's with him."

"I need to..."

"Your father's with Embry. He and Marian—" Mom looked sick. I guess I could understand that. I thought about Bert, less than a year older than Judy, without his big sister. Now I was going to be sick. "I was going to go too, after I woke Dinah."

Someone had to stay with Judy.

"I'm going to go."

"Okay."

Then she hugged me, the way she had wanted to since I woke up and I hugged her back, using every ounce of werewolf strength I had. So what if she was small compared to me? Mom was tougher than she looked. Even if she was slowing me down.

Will was going to be...I really was going to hurl.

When she let me go I was racing to the door, throwing off my clothes. Flying off the porch I transformed as I went, hitting the earth with four paws. Luckily, Quil was in my head, on his way to Embry's as fast as he could go.

_What happened?_

The last I heard she was off at some cabin, as far away from Will as her father could make her go (he was getting a little tired of watching his daughter get screwed constantly). It wasn't like vampires could get her in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't see how it would be possible, but I still hoped it was vampires.

Right now I felt like tearing something to pieces with my teeth.

Only...it wasn't vampires.

_She fell._ It was too simple. _Someone left a cosmetic bag on the top of the stairs. She must not have seen it and she just—she was gone by the time the ambulance got there._

There were pictures in his head, Marley broken and bloody, Marley with a halo of glass around her, Marley on a slab with glassy eyes. They were horrific—and thankfully unreal. Whatever her friends had found at the bottom of the stairs, no one in the pack had seen it.

_Embry wanted to go to the hospital right away, but we're afraid..._afraid he couldn't handle it. They were afraid he'd put the doctor who showed him his daughter's body through a wall. They were probably right._ We'll see her tomorrow._

_Have you seen Will?_

_He comes and goes._

Phasing unconsciously whenever it became too much.

That didn't make me feel better. We wished each other good luck and went our separate ways.

Aunt Rachel's solemn face greeted me at the door. Whispering, she told me Will was still in his room. She had been sitting with him, but he kicked her out when the phasing started and she knew better than to make a fuss (the last thing Will needed right now was to worry about hurting his mother). Benji was still asleep (the joys of being a kid). Paul was guarding the door, finally knowing his son well enough to know that Will would never want to talk to him right now.

"Hey."

It was the only thing I could think to say as I closed the door behind me. Will was on the bed; the sheets were scratched to hell, reduced to rags by claws and fangs. He looked like you would expect a guy who just lost the center of his universe to look. Like someone had gutted him and then set him on fire and he was still feeling every flame as it licked his body. Any minute now I kind of expected to throw up.

It was his eyes that were the worst; instead of holding them I pretended I had to look around the room for a place to sit even though Will's room was as familiar to me as my own.

"Hey."

At least it was a start.

"You look like shit."

For a second I thought he might phase; he laughed, instead. It didn't sound like it normally did, but I understood what it was supposed to be. Then it faded away and we were left in silence again.

"Have you—" He took a deep breath and made himself go on. "Have you seen Embry?"

"No. Dad's with him."

"I shouldn't have..." There were tears in his eyes; his hands were tearing through the mattress as he clawed at it, trying to find some control. "I need to...I should have...Levi..."

After spending my whole life as Will's best friend, I had no idea what he was trying to tell me now. I could only watch helplessly as the sobs overtook him.

In a minute my sobbing brother was replaced by a shaking wolf.

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

Sometime later—forever, maybe—Will managed full sentences.

"Do you think they'll let me see her?"

I wished he'd go back to making no sense.

"I don't—that's probably not the best idea."

"If they let me, I need to see her." The stubborn look I knew so well (when he put it on usually one of us ended up injured) crossed his face. "It's all I can—I have to see her."

"I'll ask," I promised.

"Do you think they'll let me go to the funeral?"

"I think they'll postpone until you can go." While Embry would probably have better control than Will, he might need a few days too. On a good day I could barely control the fury inside me; I couldn't imagine controlling myself if someone I loved wasn't... "We...we know how much she meant to you."

He said nothing for a long, long time.

"If I hadn't pissed Embry off, I would have been there."

My cousin had never taken responsibility for anything in his life—he wanted to start _now?_

"It wouldn't have made a difference; it's not like you could have carried her everywhere. You had nothing to do with anything."

But it seemed that he wanted to mope, because he started sobbing again. Shit. I was so in over my head.

* * *

Aunt Rachel came in with food every so often but didn't say much. There wasn't much to say. She left. We heard her and Uncle Paul arguing over what to do, but it didn't last long. All the fight had gone out of them. Seemed to be a family thing.

At some point Will fell asleep so I took a nap. I woke up when Dinah and Judy came to the door. Exactly how were they supposed to help? Judy was just going to cry and Dinah was couldn't do sympathetic to save her life.

Will cursed a bit, then found some pants and was dressed by the time Aunt Rachel let them into his room. Paul followed.

"You look like shit," Dinah told Will.

"Is that all you guys know how to say?"

"We're really sorry," Judy whispered instead. Then her eyes filled with tears and she was crying, throwing herself right at him. It helped as much as might be expected. He started sobbing again, which freaked Dinah right out because I don't think she believed he had enough feeling in him to cry. She looked helplessly at me (I shrugged, just as lost) before she awkwardly began patting his back.

"Levi," Paul said, "You can go home and take a nap. I can watch the girls."

Will wouldn't hurt my sisters.

"I'm fine," I told my uncle.

He got it, thankfully and left us alone.

* * *

My sisters were long gone when I told Will they weren't going to let him see her one last time so when he flipped out (beyond anything I had ever seen from him) at least they were safe. The room didn't really make it, but it wasn't like he had a lot of stuff he liked in there, anyway.

Eventually I made him understand. He didn't want to remember Marlena that way.

That was when he started talking about her, babbling stuff, the same shit he always said and some sentimental stuff that normally he'd rather die than tell me. I did the only thing I could—I listened.

I did have to leave Will, eventually. I was starting to smell and Aunt Rachel wasn't very nice about it. He told me to stop being so clingy, so I flipped him off and left. Heading home sounded good, but I wanted to check in with Dad first and maybe Brian, see how he was taking things, maybe see if I could get him to stay with Will for a bit.

So after I put on a different shirt, I headed to the Calls' house.

Both Embry and Marian seemed bewildered, like they were lost and knew they needed to ask for directions but couldn't figure out whom to ask. Dad and Quil were standing behind Embry (they were pretending it was so they could hustle him out of there if he needed it, but it was just so they could put their hands on his shoulders, touch him, because somehow that made things better in the tiny way they could ever be better again). Embry had his arm around his wife, who had her arm around Bert, who I don't think recognized me at all. All he did was blink, baffled that the world was still moving.

After some awkward conversation, Dad and I had a brief talk outside.

The funeral would be in two days. Will would be fine (I think the unexpected shock of grief was out of his system by now; his parents had let him see his brother this morning and that had gone well) and so would Embry, though we wanted to have the two of them meet before hand just in case something went wrong.

"Anything else I can do?" I asked. "You've got work covered?"

"Don't worry about that. Just keep checking in on everyone, let them know you're there."

"Of course."

A tiny grin emerged on my father's face. Then—before my wolf reflexes even realized what had happened—my father was hugging me. Almost as soon as I realized what was happening he had stopped.

"Try to come home for dinner. Your mother's worried even if...we understand if you can't come."

"I'll try."

Then I took off because I think I would have started bawling if I had stayed there for one second longer.

* * *

When I got to Brian's house, it wasn't Brian I found when I pushed my way through the front door.

It was Sam Uley.

And he was drunk.

The boys had been goofing off in the backyard when I came up—I had heard their shouts and laughter as I walked up to the door—but suddenly I couldn't hear them. On the bright side, I finally stopped feeling sick.

"Can I help you, Levi?"

His voice was only slightly slurred. Guy could handle his booze.

I don't think I ever hated anyone more than I hated Sam at that moment.

Because he was _pathetic_. It was four in the afternoon. I shouldn't have been able to smell the alcohol on his breath from outside. His eyes shouldn't have trouble focusing. The sunken eyes repulsed me for reasons I couldn't say. _Everything_ repulsed me in that second. The two day old beard. The messy hair. The shirt that had yesterday's stench clinging to it. Everything.

I grabbed his collar and slammed him into the wall before I realized what I was doing.

For a second, I swear he looked angry.

"Stop it! So what if she's dead? So what? You think this is what she'd want? You think this will bring her back? Stop it! Stop it. Just..."

Before I could figure out what the hell I meant, a hand was on my arm, jerking me back.

Brian was snarling in my face: "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Knowing how dangerous it was to have him phase indoors, I let go. The fire was still running through my veins but now it was burning behind my eyes.

"Nothing. I'm going."

I practically raced out of that house; it didn't work as well as I wanted it to. Brian followed me out.

"You touch him again—"

Since my retreat wasn't going the way I wanted it to, I turned around and faced off with Brian. The guy didn't have a hope in hell against me.

"He just gave up and left you—"

I ducked the fist, pushed Brian across the yard and took off.

I had better things to do.

* * *

Only when I got home to my house, it was to find it empty. Well, that was good, I guess. I needed to take a nap before I headed back to Will's and having no one around guaranteed that it would be quiet.

But lying on my bed without Will to worry about just meant I had to finally start thinking about Marlena.

I would have given anything to not have to do that.

I had practically stalked her when I was sixteen. I was a better hunter now, but back then I had been determined and hormonal, so I had accomplished a lot. I knew more about her than anyone should. We were the same age, so we had been thrown together in school all the time. We had been thrown together an awful lot, period. Our Dad's were best friends and the rez was small. And she just...when you were around her, you were happier. Better.

She wasn't some kind of saint, or anything like that, because she had a mouth on her that could make me blush, even if she didn't realize what she was saying half the time. That was the beauty of her, really. There was no coy calculation. You never had to read between the lines with Marley; she told you what she felt and then you dealt with it.

And no matter what she said to you, she'd throw her head back and laugh afterwards. She wasn't afraid of laughing or of being happy or of anything, really. If she had to laugh at herself to make someone slightly happier, than she would laugh at herself without thought. She was incredible that way.

Some people go through life and never figure out that life is supposed to be fun; Marley never had that problem. If she didn't enjoy it, she didn't do it. Period.

When I was eight she was my first kiss. We got married that day, I think. Honestly, I hadn't been paying much attention to the game. And I thought kissing her was gross. Her cooties could have killed me.

"Sorry about that," I found myself muttering to my ceiling. "And sorry about..."

I was sorry about all the names I called her when Will liked spending time with her. If she came back right then I gladly would have let her have him, every second of every day for the rest of eternity so long as he wasn't the shaking, shivering wreck I had left back at his house. She could have him. As long as she came back.

I was trying not to think of Marlena, but it was hard with the tears and everything. She had been sweet and wonderful and...

She had great tits.

* * *

When I got to Aunt Rachel's house, I found the wrong uncle sitting on the front porch.

"I thought you were in Africa," I said as Uncle Seth greeted me.

"Thought it was time to get back," he shrugged. "I just finished talking to Embry."

So that's why he was out here, gathering his strength. I don't think I could handle them back to back, either.

"Did you bring me back anything?"

I figured pretending things were normal couldn't hurt.

"Sorry. I forgot most of my stuff there. Nessie'll send it over eventually."

"Did you have fun?"

I meant to sound leering, but I was too tired. It worked out for the best because a dark expression crossed his face before he smiled and told me that hadn't really been there to have fun, but he had met some really great people.

Thinking about all the key chains Seth brought back, I had a general idea about where he usually wandered off to. Half of them were sites of natural disasters; a quarter were warzones; I needed to Dinah tell me what the other half were but I bet they weren't pleasant places.

But my uncle was the happiest guy I knew. I think he was playing chicken with the universe—and for the most part, I think he was winning. All the places he went, all the crap he saw, he was asking the world to show it how bad it could get. Then he put on a smile and refused to let anything get him down. He was going to be happy no matter how much crap he saw, no matter what sorts of terrible things people had to endure. That was that.

There were worse people to have around Will right now.

Since I had exhausted my list of stupid questions for the night, I followed him inside so we could talk to my cousin.

Uncle Seth always had the best stories and he didn't disappoint. It kept Will distracted and kept me laughing, so I couldn't complain. If we'd been in the mansion in the middle of nowhere sneaking beer from our parents it might even have felt like old times.

Seth's latest story of how he had been outwitted by a child was interrupted by a knock on the door. Brian came in a second later, looking a little unsure of his welcome but closing the door firmly behind him. In his hand was a pack of cards.

"And I am officially pathetic," Will announced to the world at large. But he made room for Brian and got annoyed when our brother hesitated. "Hurry up. We're playing poker, right?"

"Yeah." Brian wasn't looking at me, but we could do this for Will. "But I'm not betting more than a hundred bucks, so steal my money slowly."

"Fine."

My uncle excused himself (jetlag, he said) and then the three of us started playing. We couldn't help the trash talk; it was habit. The jokes were more subdued than usual, but we still managed a few. We were werewolves, after all. Death went with the territory. So did bouncing back.

After my cousin lost over three hundred dollars, I called the game. There was no sense in reminding him how lousy his luck was today.


	15. Chapter 14

Brian came over the next day. Well, my sister brought him over. The moral of the story is he got to my house.

We all just stood around in silence. Dinah was glaring at Brian, but it wasn't working the way it usually did. She had got him to the house; I guess I could help her out.

"I'm sorry I flipped out."

"You were having a tough time," Brian said. Between us, Dinah rolled her eyes. If she didn't like the way we did things, she could screw off.

"Yeah. Thanks for helping with Will."

"Of course. I..." He looked at Dinah for a second. She was not impressed. "My parents were nothing like Marley and Will...Dad's just your worst case scenario."

"Brian? Shut up."

"Yeah."

To show Dinah that we weren't still mad at each other (even if we had been, we wouldn't have dared be mad at each other in front of her) we even hit each other. It made her roll her eyes, but it also made her happy.

Unfortunately, being that close to Brian meant I had to say something about the smell.

"The two of you could have showered before you came over."

"Excuse me?"

Brian knew what I was on about, if the way he was blushing was any indication. Now it occurred to him? How would he like it if I slept with _his_ sister and then showed up smelling like...my life sucked.

It occurred to Dinah, eventually, because she finally stopped looking confused and started looking smug. "Grow up, Levi. Try to be mature for once in your life."

"The two of us are having a talk," I told Brian. Not now, obviously, because Dinah was dragging him away and the two of us were powerless against her, but soon. What the hell was he doing? He had an imprint and mess of a father and...I thought about how much I missed Kara lately and sort of got it.

Sort of.

It didn't mean I didn't think about cutting off my nose off because I could have gone my whole life without smelling my sister like THAT.

* * *

I guess you could say the funeral went well. It went as well as well a funeral could go. It didn't rain, no one punched anyone and we could still hear each other over the crying. Marian was a mess and Embry wasn't much better (but he didn't even come close to phasing and that's all we could help with) and Bert looked like he wanted to cry but couldn't seem to figure out how. Will and I took a bit of a walk halfway through, but no one minded and he finished the service out okay (he dug his nails into his palm so hard he broke the skin, but the smell of blood didn't set anyone off and it seemed to help him). And then we said goodbye to Marley—not that it helped.

Three days after the funeral, Will came on patrol with me and Brian. The old-timers left us alone so we could see how it felt just the three of us; we needed to make sure we were okay.

Of course, we had a bit of trouble with the running in silence. Brian and I kept up the conversation, but we hated not including Will. Eventually, Brian thought to aim a soft-ball question his way.

_So what did you get up to yesterday?_

We thought we already knew the answer because all Will had been doing lately was hanging around Embry's house and eating, but that wasn't the answer he gave. He was too lost to keep us out and when Brian pushed (I would have been pissed, because now was not the time to demand Will start being more open with us, but the guy loved his family) Will's barely there mental wall cracked completely and Brian got the whole thing.

"_I can drive her."_

_I didn't mean to say it, or maybe I did because I need to get out of this house and town and as far from everything as soon as possible or...I don't know. But Seattle is not La Push and that's all that matters right now. And Embry wants someone to look after Fran (of course she hitchhiked—how the hell was she supposed to afford to come back without a car if she didn't hitchhike? What did Embry expect? Everyone around here is useless)._

_Be nice to Dad, Lena said. Last thing she ever said to me. And so I opened my mouth._

_Embry looks grateful, so Fran can just shut up with her 'oh that's not necessary' bullshit. We both know she's got no way else. She was fishing for a ride—doesn't she know you're supposed to be careful what you wish for?_

"_I'm going to Seattle," I say. "Come or don't come. But I'm going now."_

_And she's desperate, so she capitulates quickly. She's turning to Embry, apologizing for not coming to the funeral again. Of course she didn't come. Even I still remember Fran at her mother's funeral, father clinging to one arm, Brian clinging to the other, all those little boys circling around her. She wasn't going to another funeral unless they dragged her there in chains. Looking back Levi's sucker punch had been deserved; it hadn't been the time to point out the real tragedy of the day was her decision not to wear a dress._

_Lena's was the first funeral I've ever been to where I cared that someone wasn't going to come back. I could have done without the change in perspective._

_I hate the little trip down memory lane, but I'm having a hard time focusing on the here and now lately. There are lots of things out there that could help—I've done tests. It's all I can think about lately, pills and my girlfriend's broken neck._

_I need to get out of her house but Bert's between me and the door._

"_Come back?" he asks. It's the first time I've heard him talk in days. And I don't do this—I only look after Benny-Buddy because I'm proving to Paul it's damn easy to be there for a kid—but I find myself nodding, trying to be comforting._

"_Yeah, kid. I'll be back before you know it."_

_I'm standing in the front hall and choking and the only problem is I'm not dying fast enough._

"_Don't forget to take her home first!" Embry calls from the doorway._

_There's fifty dollars in my peripheral vision. She's looking at her lap, not at the money she's offering me. Sam thinks I was trying to fuck with him (I was, a little), but mostly I used to deal with Fran and not Brian when Sam did something particularly stupid because it was just faster. Brian wants me to learn some sort of lesson—Fran just wants me to get away from her family as fast as possible._

_I take the money._

"_Now that we've gone to see your brothers, any place else you want to go?"_

"_I have to work in four hours."_

_Suits me._

_The radio is too loud but Fran doesn't complain; maybe she thinks I can't hear her crying over the music. If I was a human I wouldn't hear her...if I was a human I wouldn't give a shit that Marlena Call couldn't walk in a straight line to save her life. I wouldn't feel like someone was gutting me every time I breathed._

_The last time Lena was in this car she had her fingers drumming on the window as she sang along to music I really couldn't stand. I can't tell where I am half the time anymore, like back when I first phased and I thought I'd finally gone off the deep end the way everyone always expected me to. But I can't forget how fucking beautiful Lena was._

"_Do you know how the boys are doing?"_

_I could ignore her. The music is loud, she's talking quietly, conversation doesn't really work between us...I should ignore her. But I hate not being able to focus, so I turn off the radio. If I use more force than necessary, my car and I have an understanding._

"_You're asking me if I noticed how your brothers were doing the week after Lena died? Sorry, Fran, but my dead girlfriend was a little bit more distracting than that."_

"_My dead girlfriend? I will pay you to say that in front of Di." But despite the sharpness and the threat (I'm not scared of Dinah, I just know it's smart to not piss her off too much) Fran isn't as upset as I would have thought she'd be. It's amazing the sympathy having a dead girlfriend will get you. "Lena deserves better than that."_

"_You think I don't know—"_

_Fuck. I'm going to cry in front of Francine Uley. That doesn't work for me on so many levels, but I'm terrified I won't be able to stop._

"_Tell me about my brothers," she says so quietly I'm not sure I didn't just hallucinate it. I don't care that maybe I did. I answer because when I'm thinking about the Uleys I'm not thinking about Lena._

"_Baxter's trying to be some sort of punk. Low-key stuff, pot and skipping class but Brian won't let me scare him straight."_

_It had been Levi's idea; normally it should have worked. Brian can resist Levi less than I can (Alpha or not, I'm not mindlessly taking orders from the kid who followed me around for years). Brian gets stupider than usual when it came to his family._

"_When have you ever let what Brian thought stop you?"_

_That's permission. Family's off-limits without permission, but someone needs to talk to that kid before his stupidity ends up permanent and I'm the only one who's going to enjoy it._

"_True."_

"_Are you going to tell him about the crowbar and the knitting needles?"_

_That was only partially true, but the kid didn't need to know that. He's like Lena was, trusting to the point where it becomes unreal. Shouldn't she have known everything I said was bullshit? Shouldn't someone have told her? We all grew up together, it's not like people don't know. But she never once doubted a single word I said. I never got that—where did she get the idea I deserved her trust?_

"_I don't want the kid to wet himself. I'll think of something else. So he's being an idiot and Artie got his heart broken, which you probably know." Fran does not look happy at the thought of her future sister-in-law. "He seems like he's doing okay, though. It's better this way. It wasn't going anywhere—and his faux-artistic angst is so much better than Brian's habit of pining like a little bitch."_

"_One of these days you'll forgive my brother for being smarter than you."_

"_How much smarter can he be if he hasn't figured that out by now?"_

_She concedes the point (Brian has about as much common sense as a hamster) by not saying anything at all. I don't think I've ever heard either twin say something uncharitable about the other, though Brian has finally started to think it. Took him long enough. I wonder how long it will take him to accept she's never coming back? Before the world ends? I wouldn't put money on it._

"_And the twins are the same as they always are." Smiling hurts a little, after all this time. "Off in their own little world."_

"_Timothy told me he rescued me from aliens the other day."_

"_Before or after the dissection?"_

"_After, of course. I told them to keep an eye—"_

"_Yeah. They still listen to you." Bet they would have done it anyway, though. "They're good kids."_

"_I know. They're being good for Brian?"_

"_Yeah. Not that he's doing great. Did he tell you Dinah wants him back?"_

_No, if her annoyance is any indication._

_"Please tell me you're lying."_

_"Why lie when the truth is funnier?"_

_"What the hell is she thinking? If he's moved on—unlikely, but he's never going to be able to if she doesn't give him space." She sighs. "Why don't people ever love what's good for them?"_

_I'm snarling before I quite realize what I'm doing._

_Just because Lena didn't realize Fran wasn't just teasing doesn't mean I don't know better. Fran thinks Lena was nuts or shallow or stupid to date me (most likely all three). I can't have anyone thinking of less of my girl._

"_I got clean—" which makes me sound like an addict instead of the avid admirer I was but Fran wouldn't know the difference so I don't bother to explain "—ten months ago. And since you can't do math, that's before we started going together."_

_Not that I had a damn choice about it. No one was going to risk giving a werewolf anything. And after going through _that _I wasn't going to go back. It helped I didn't need to. As a wolf, I could get by on five hours of sleep without help._

_I haven't slept more than two hours at a time since...since Marian called me. Every time I lie down, she's there, light hair and light eyes, soft and supple, blathering on the way she always did. I'm starting to feel the effects of the insomnia, even as a werewolf (without supernatural reflexes, there's no way in hell I should be behind the wheel of a car right now; maybe I shouldn't anyway). I need something, need something soon, either to kick me awake or knock me out (I know which one I'd always pick). I need something but it's ten months and seventeen days and even off drugs no one thinks I deserved Lena._

_I didn't, but like hell I was going to let that stop me. Not when she was so damn perfect._

"_I didn't—that's amazing." I snort and Fran gets offended. Uleys hate it when you don't thank them for their condescension. "I mean it, William. It...it can't be easy."_

_If it was easy, her dad would have done it a long time ago._

_And maybe having a dead girlfriend has given me a personality transplant because I don't rub it in Fran's face that her dad's never going to stop. I should—I can't stand hypocrites, especially when they're my father's friends. It's part of the reason I told Paul, back when Sam first started asking me for favours ("keep your fucking mouth shut," my father told me, "it's no one's business but his"). I should have known better; Sam covered for my father for years, so Paul had to return the favour._

_But I told Dad even though I knew my father was useless. Maybe that's why I don't tell Fran her father's never going to get better—she knows already. What's the point of bringing up something that won't change?_

"_No," I finally say. "It wasn't."_

_Lena never knew that; everything in her world was perfect and fair and easy. Sometimes I even half convinced myself that it wasn't just a crazy dream of hers._

"_I think Di was right. Whatever you were taking was stunting your growth. I didn't even recognize you until you started snarling. You must be taller than Brian now. Maybe even Levi."_

"_They grew too." I was the fucking runt of our pack. I was a runt with a dead girlfriend—maybe I should take Paul's advice and walk in front of a train. Probably just wreck the train now._

"_Levi can't have grown. He wouldn't be able to get through doorways if he got taller."_

_He'll like that the way she sounds admiring (enough to get rid of Kara?—no, I'm not that lucky). Usually when I told Levi to drop something he did, but somehow Fran was special. And now that I have a hole in my chest I wish it hadn't annoyed me so much because if I hadn't been such a jerk maybe Fran wouldn't have avoided me in public until Levi decided that Lena would do instead and I wouldn't be sitting here hoping the truck doesn't see us when it switches lanes._

"_He's taller."_

_Bigger than me by almost half a foot. Not that it matters, because he has better things to do now than watch my back. But I don't want to think of Levi off without me._

"_There must be something in the water."_

_We've all been poisoned._

"_Maybe. Brian tell you the two of us are almost friends now?"_

_Almost being the key word, but still. I'd die for the dude, but I don't have to like him. If he wants to be his father's son, that's his call; it just means I get to hate them both._

"_Now I know you're lying."_

"_I'm not. He trusts me. With everything."_

_I rattle off her pin number because I can._

"_Excuse me?"_

_I could tell her there's nothing that can be done, not with so little money coming in and so much going out, but she should have figured it out herself. It was basic math, really. Which reminds me... "He lets me read your bank statements. You wanna tell me how you make all that money you send back?"_

"_Retail," she lies. Please. That's not how she's making more money than I thought you could with a high school education and a dislike of petty crime._

"_Personally, I think stripping is the most likely—"_

"_Cut it out."_

_"Do they know you're not twenty-one?"_

"_No—and this is none of your business. Not...please, not today."_

_Yeah. Today kind of sucks. Kind of like yesterday. And tomorrow. I wonder if she's as grateful for the silence as I am. Hope so. I would hate to be the only who wanted everything to just be quiet for a second. Not that...I find myself wondering where the air ends and the metal begins on sharp knives lately, but what I really want is...well, Lena. Obviously._

_Fran doesn't say anything for the rest of the trip but she doesn't sprint out of the car when I pull up in front of the place she rents with Dinah either._

"_Thank you for the ride."_

"_Yeah."_

"_Listen. After my mom...Lena was amazing." She's washed her father's puke out of her hair without flinching but her voice catches now and I hate that, hate the way I have no choice but to remember how wonderful Lena was. How kind and caring and all the things I didn't really believe people could be, but that she was anyway. "I want her family to have that, since…if there's something I can do, especially for Bert, call me or tell them to call me or…something. I…I need to…please?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_Thank you." She hesitates, but adds, "She was so crazy about you. You were all she talked about—it would have been really annoying, actually, except it was incredible hearing her be that happy."_

_Like I don't know Lena loved me. I might forget to breathe nowadays, but I'm not going to forget that._

_I'm glad to hear it just the same._

"_I don't know how you did it—" costume jewellery and lots of flowers "—but you meant the world to her. So…don't do anything too...make sure whoever you pick a fight with is smaller than you because she wouldn't have wanted…"_

_"Not quite the platitude I was expecting, but I guess Dear Abbey has gone downhill lately. You going to get to the shoulder to cry on part soon? Because I'm getting tired of sitting here."_

_It gets her out of the car._

_"Have a safe trip back to La Push."_

_It's understood she's telling me to go to hell. And suddenly I feel guilty._

"_Fran?"_

_She leans through the open window. "What now?"_

_I've been feeling guilty a lot lately. Feeling guilty in a way I had always refused to before because I was doing the best I could with the shit I had to work with. But if I had kept my damn mouth shut...and if Lena wasn't a pathetic klutz. She's dead and if she came back right this second I'd kiss her and strangle her myself all at the same time. I don't think I've ever hated Paul as much as I hate Lena right this second and I hate how guilty that makes me._

_I didn't used to hate being alone; I blame Lena for that too._

"_How are you enjoying your last year at school?"_

_Her dreams are just as imaginary as mine; I might be off lately, but I can tell she already knows. It's basic math. She might be a coward, but Fran isn't stupid._

"_You read a bank statement and suddenly you know everything?"_

_"It's a gift."_

_"Brian says—"_

_"Brian's a shitty liar."_

_"And you need everyone to be a stuck as you are. I'm sorry, William, I really am, but it's not my fault my brothers can get by without me. Goodbye."_

_And before I can remind her they can't (not like she needs the reminder, even if she can do what I couldn't, try to cut them out so she can get out) she's stalking off. It almost looks like she's not running away. Almost._

_I think my dead girlfriend would disapprove about how much better I feel, now that I've made her friend miserable. Tough. She wanted to disapprove, she shouldn't have fucking left me._

_And then I head back to La Push because Fran's not wrong either—I am stuck. At least this way they'll bury me beside Lena._

Well, shit.

To say that Brian wasn't happy was an understatement. Francy was at Embry's house and she didn't say hello? She hitchhiked to Embry's house, knowing that Native girl hitch-hiking is like the first line on half the missing person's reports (well, the ones they don't file)? She hitch-hiked wearing _that_? (I know he was grieving, but would it have killed Will to pay a bit more attention to how short that dress was?) Worst of all was that Brian didn't want to believe Will was right, that she suspected her brother was lying to her, that she knew things were bad at home...and that she still couldn't stand to face him.

And I would help Brian, I would, just as soon as I could stop worrying about stray thoughts about knives and pills.

But Will phased back and headed to Embry's before I could say anything. It was Brian who got to him first.

"You didn't take her home? What the hell, Will? That's my sister—"

"And fifty bucks said not to bring her home."

Fifty bucks wouldn't even cover gas, but then we all know driving Francy had just been an excuse to get as far away as from Marley as he could for the few seconds he could stand to be away. I hated that he had to try to leave. I hated how he felt like he had to come back. I hated him for hating her, just a little bit, then hated myself for not being able to help him.

"You let her leave."

"You told her to go, idiot. Everyone else could see she was never going to come back. You don't get to complain about that now."

And as it finally hit Brian that the money his sister was sending home every month was her way of buying her freedom, Will took off. This time I was the one who followed, but when he turned around he was even worse than he had been with Brian.

"Enough fucking babysitting," he growled. "Enough, Levi, or I will show you exactly why everyone thinks I should be locked up."

Brian caught up with me a moment later as I just stood there and watched Will walk away.

"She'd rather talk to Will than me," Brian murmured. "How in the hell did that happen?"

"Looked like she'd rather avoid both of you."

"That doesn't make me feel better."

And neither would going home to a house that was overrun with boys who needed him and a father who was letting him down and my sister who confused the hell out of him and the ghost of two women that he still loved but weren't there (only one of whom was dead). So I did the only thing I could think of.

"Hey, Brian? Do you want to get shitfaced?"

It was probably a bad idea. Our control was slipping and this was just going to make it worse. I hated what I saw in Will's head, but I didn't think it would be much better with Brian. The last thing I needed right now was to see me sister even partially undressed.

But...things sucked.

And since everything was going to hell, Brian just sighed and agreed.


	16. Chapter 15

"_You okay?"_

"_He was going to marry her."_

_I don't know why that matters to me. It never really seemed to matter to Will. It was something he was going to do because it was expected, because it was easier to do than argue, because it would make her happy and that's all that mattered to him. He was going to marry her—and now he can't._

_Until Dinah puts her hand on my back I don't even realize I'm shaking. Her hands are cold, but I relax as she tells me, "The boys are in bed and your father's out of it."_

_Really out of it. He's been so much worse ever since...it's like back when Mom first died, all over again. Only this time Francy isn't here, with a plan and the knowledge that we can do this and the ability to get Dad to listen for half a second. It's just me and the boys (the past couple of days mean there's no way they don't know about everything anymore—I couldn't even do that right). _

_Where the hell is my sister? I thought she loved Lena, but she didn't come to the funeral. She just sent flowers. Who the hell just sends flowers? What the hell is wrong with her?_

"_Your Dad has to run a patrol tomorrow because Embry needs the others, so you better remember to wake him early. And I don't think Baxter did his English assignment, so you should...Brian?"_

"_Yeah?"_

"_Brian...? You can—please? Talk to me."_

_She sounds worried, something she rarely ever is. I hate that I'm failing her like this but I can't...I keep talking to the window because I can't look at her right now._

"_Levi and I got into a fight yesterday. He saw Dad and he...I almost attacked him."_

"_He's acting stupider than usual lately. Give him a break."_

"_Those are words I never thought I'd hear you say," I say. I'm almost laughing, but I'm not sure why._

"_Apparently Will has a soul and you have a temper. Why can't I have a heart?"_

"_Darling, don't..."_

_I hate it when she talks about herself like that. She's got the biggest heart of anyone I know. What else is she doing here, when my sister's fled and my brothers' have fled and everyone else pretends I can handle it? _

_When I turn, she's there for me. She's always been there for me, in a way she's never needed me to be there for her. I wish I could do more, but right now I'm just so grateful I can wrap my arms around her and just pretend things aren't falling apart around me._

"_It's okay," she promises. She holds me to her, fingers in my hair, hands rubbing circles on my back. "Whatever it is, Brian, we'll figure something out."_

_With my face buried in her the crook of her neck, I can admit what's scaring me most. Seeing my father, seeing Will, seeing how scared Levi is of becoming like them when you lose the person at the center of your world...it's terrifying. And I know who I couldn't lose._

"_I was going to marry you."_

_She doesn't look surprised. I wasn't very subtle about it. Francy said I should wait until we got to college, until we had spent two weeks away from La Push, but even though I waited I knew it was what I wanted to do. What I had to do, really, because when you love someone, you have to stay with them._

"_I know."_

"_I still want..." Is that fair? I don't even care at this point. I can't let go of her, can't stop holding her, touching her. She belongs to me. She always has. Ginger might be the centre of the universe but Dinah _is_ my universe. _

"_Brian, you're upset right now and—"_

"_I still love you."_

"_I know." She laughs, always five steps ahead of me as usual. "I've only been saying that for—"_

_As beautiful as she is when she gloats, tonight I don't want to just watch her from afar. I've done enough of that the past year. Where has that gotten me? If I lost her tomorrow the world would be just as unbearable. _

_So I kiss her. Her lips are colder than they used to be, but just as soft, just as eager. They part quickly, pulling me deeper. There's no more stupid barriers between us, walls we foolishly erected ourselves or gullies we just accepted were too wide to cross. There's nothing between us, anymore. _

_Her hands are already curled into my shirt—I'm not allowed to leave her again. As if I could. _

"_Took you long enough," she murmurs. I laugh and she laughs, but we don't break apart because we aren't doing that anymore, so we kiss and laugh into each other's mouth. It's different, now that I'm taller, but my hands remember the feel of her as if it was yesterday. Touching her is better than I remember, but just as familiar, just as easy._

_The way she moans doesn't sound like it did before. Well, it does, but I can feel it right through the heart of me now. _

"_The boys might wake up. We should…" But for once she doesn't have all the answers. _

_This time, at least, I understand her. Thanks to my new co-ordination, it's easy enough to back her into my room._

There are no words for how badly I want Brian to be able to control his thoughts. I would come up with some, except right now I don't even give a shit that he totally fucked my sister while the rest of his family slept in the rooms beside them.

No wonder Will spent so much time high.

_Adderall makes you more alert._ Of course Brian would give me a chemistry lesson while we're trying to forget how sucky our lives are. Well, Brian was getting some, so I guess his life was all right.

_Don't act like you know what the hell you're talking about, _I snap. _What do you know about it?_

What did I know about it?

Don't ask, Will said, so I didn't. I didn't know the pills were Adderall until I phased, didn't know the hyper-concentration wasn't part of Will's personality naturally until he detoxed and suddenly couldn't read for ten hours straight anymore. I should have known, because who the hell could do that? But I didn't. I didn't know because I didn't ask, because I didn't know how to take care of him the way he took care of me. Things didn't just come to me (and I wasn't going to spend twenty hours awake at a time to come up with a solution). So I just...I didn't ask. I just left him and if he hadn't phased he might never have gotten better.

_Levi, stop it. No one is expecting you to magically fix him._

_Hey, maybe he can fuck your sister and feel better about life._

_I didn't—I love her, Levi._

I might be pissed at the world, but Brian was still here. He was still here and he meant it. I gave him a break.

_I know. Everyone knows. I just don't need to see it. Or smell it. Or think about it. Ever. _

_You're the one who wanted to go out tonight._

_Yeah, but I'm a self-destructive idiot. Well, I hang around one a lot. Some stuff has rubbed off. _

Brian laughed. That was nice. It made everything less sucky, which was the point. We could finally relax. Of course, it couldn't last for long because the world hated us and wanting to help was far too ingrained in both of us. I had tried to bury the feeling for years but it hadn't worked and I was tired of trying.

_Do you think he'll...do you think he can stay clean without her?_

_I don't know. _I was afraid he couldn't. More than that, though, I was afraid that the pills weren't the kind of escape he wanted anymore.

* * *

When I stumbled into my house, I almost tripped over the air. Which was funny. Then I almost sat down on my uncle's head. Which was funnier. That was the reason I was laughing.

"Keep it down, Levi," Seth said as he got up, rubbing his eyes. I should have remembered; if he was in town he could very well end up on our couch.

"What?"

He stared at me for a long moment; couldn't he smell what was the matter with me?

"So that's your way of helping, Will?"

"I don't know how to help Will."

"Nobody does, kid. I'm sure you're doing fine." Somehow I ended up sitting down on the couch. Where'd he go? Something was pressed into my hand. "Drink that."

"It's not like I've imprinted. I don't know... how am I supposed to know what to do?"

"You're not."

"How come you're the only one who never imprinted?"

"What?"

"I mean...everyone else did. Except Mom. Is it a Clearwater thing?" Maybe I could still get out of it. I wished Will were here.

My uncle's face swam in and out of focus. His expression didn't look so comforting, though.

"I did."

"What?"

"I imprinted."

I blame all the shit I had just swallowed for what I said next. Because if I had been remotely sober I could have added no imprint plus his expression and come up with the answer all by myself, thank you very much. But I wasn't sober. So I opened my damn mouth.

"So where is she now?"

"She died a few years before you were born. Hell, she was dying when I met her."

"Oh."

I probably would have said that even if I was sober. What else were you supposed to say to that?

"So I know what it's like. I know no one Will's age should have to go through it."

This time my brain added up everything.

"So you and Sam are the options? Either he's a fucking alcoholic or he just goes? And comes back, I guess. Can't stay away from her grave for too long, even if you can't stay in the place she died too long either. Shit."

I was pretty close to crying at this point. That was probably why he didn't deck me. I would have decked me.

"Levi?" My uncle put his hand on my shoulder, which is why I looked up. "I don't—I miss her. I'm always going to miss her. But I _have_ made peace with that. Your parents helped me. And Embry and Quil. Even Sam helped me though I never managed to return the favour. Lots of people helped me and I got better."

"Then why are you sleeping on our couch?"

"It's comfortable." He laughed, probably because I sounded like a five year old girl, pouting for her Barbie. "Levi, I like your couch. And staying with you guys. And I—I have friends that don't live in La Push and sometimes I like going to sleep on their couches. Not because I'm running away but because...they're my friends. Even if everyone around here would rather I was still pining away after her instead of being friends with vampires.

"It hit Sam the worst because he thought it was supposed to. He always took it all so much more seriously than anyone else. Legends say you're supposed to die without your imprint; Sam needed the legends to be true. But...they're stories, Levi. Sometimes we remember things wrong. You can live without your imprint; you can be happy without her."

"Like you and Sam are happy?"

"We aren't the only options, you know." Even sober I wouldn't have been able to get it. "There's Kim, too."

"Kim doesn't count."

"Why not? She lost Jared—her husband, her high school sweetheart, the center of her world, the father of her child. But she managed, Levi. She had her daughter to take care of and she pulled herself through the heartache. And I hear she managed to do a pretty decent job with Kara."

"Yeah...she did pretty great."

"Well, then, maybe Will can end up like Kim."

"Don't say that to him. He'd hate it. He's such an asshole when it comes to Kara."

"I won't say anything."

I thought about it some more. "You really are better?"

"Yeah. It's like someone shot me through the chest. Sure, there's a gaping hole there but...I'm alive," he shrugged. "Most of the time I forget it's even there. I've got so many other scars what's one more?"

I believed Seth because I had to, because I needed to believe Will could be happy again (well...he had never been happy, but as close as we had gotten before).

"You got any new ones?"

"I'll show you them tomorrow, when you might remember. You need to get to bed."

He helped me to my room, dropping me on my bed. I was out pretty quick.

The next morning, along with a spectacular hangover, I actually had to deal with what he had told me.

Seth was better? I couldn't tell. I never knew about the dead imprint, but I had known that my uncle wasn't quite like other people. But maybe he had always been a freak. I clung to that. I let myself hope that Will would get better.

* * *

"Hey stranger," Kara said as she pulled me inside the house. Luckily, she didn't let me respond (I hadn't been doing great with rational responses the past while) just pulled me to the couch. Her mother was around, but she still sat practically in my lap. Picking up my hand, she asked: "How are you?"

"Will's still a mess. I thought maybe after the funeral but...he's still a mess. I don't—"

I was pathetic. I couldn't even finish a damn sentence without crying any more.

"And how are you, Levi?"

Stupid question. If Will was a wreck, I was a wreck.

"I missed you," I said. It almost hurt, how true it was. Since her mother wasn't looking, I kissed her. There was something _nice_ about doing that again. It was even nice resting my forehead against her.

"I missed you, too. I...you want to stay for dinner with Moms and me? There's dead animal, so I know you'll like it."

"Ha ha." Even if she had made it sound as unappetizing as she could, I was a little tempted. "There won't be enough for you if I stay."

"She hasn't started, yet. Stay. Please?"

I agreed and she scampered off to beg her mother. Kim didn't even protest that much; great. She thought I was pathetic. But before I could get too upset about it, Kara was back, smiling like a lunatic.

I had to smile back.

"You wanna watch TV or something?"

Not quite what I wanted to do with my girlfriend, but as she snuggled against me, she whispered, "Stop it, Levi. Moms is right there."

"That's why I'm keeping my hands to myself."

She glanced down at her chest. I followed her gaze, just as surprised as anybody to find my hand had someone managed to end up on her breast.

"Oops. Maybe if you didn't wear such baggy shirts I wouldn't get confused like that."

"Uh huh."

I think she was ignoring me as she turned on the TV. So I pulled her close and kissed her neck, just so she would squeal and give me one of those stupid girly slaps and turn away with a huff and a beautiful smile.

"I'm so damn tired. This couch is too comfy."

"It's okay if you fall asleep," she answered, playing with my fingers. "I don't mind. I know you'll wake up when the food ends up on the table, anyway."

"True."

Sitting with Kara was so comfortable I almost forgot—for half a second—what Sam had been like when his wife was alive. It seemed to be all I could think about lately.

* * *

"You have one minute to voice your objections and then I'm going to start ignoring you."

Shouldn't I outrank Dinah at this point? But somehow I found myself jumping to follow her orders.

"He's imprinted, he's stressed and you're away in Seattle most of the year. Oh and I can smell it every time you have sex. I think that's everything."

"Short and to the point. I'm impressed."

My sister and I sat on the front porch. We should be inside, dinner would be starting soon, but we just wanted a minute. We'd been having a lot of family dinners lately; it was starting to be a habit. I don't think I minded.

"You happy?"

"Yeah." Dinah sighed. "I'm happy. I just wish I didn't feel like I was benefitting from Marley's…that's the only thing I'd change. Otherwise, I'm happy. He's a good guy, Levi."

"Since when did you become a romantic? Who would have thought you'd believe in love conquers all?"

"You can become a werewolf, but I can't become a romantic?"

"Pretty much."

My sister poked me in the stomach (my sisters had learned not to attack me at this point) and rolled her eyes. Then she put her head on my shoulder.

"You okay, Levi?"

"You know how Francy wouldn't tell you what was going on with her and Brian was about this close to having a mental breakdown? Will's being an overachiever and doing both at once and I have no fucking clue what to do."

"He can take it."

I snorted. Dinah continued on, just as softly.

"This isn't me being a bitch. He's always just…he figures out what he wants to do and then he does it. I usually have a huge problem with _how_ he wants to do things, but I have to give the guy some credit. He's not afraid of working for what he wants. When he clues into the fact he can't just hang around moping with Embry and Bert the rest of his life, he'll figure out some way to make himself feel better and that'll be that."

"I don't like this plan."

I really didn't like it because I wasn't sure his way of feeling better would end with him still alive.

"Of course you don't. But, seriously, Levi. Has Will ever let anyone help him?"

We'd talk. He'd talk to me about things (not everything—he'd joked about selling to Sam but I had no idea just how involved he'd been. For Marley's sake, Brian and I were pretending it was because we had all grown up together and trying not to think about how Will never did anything for free). But Will rarely let me get involved. I could be the lookout, I could be the bodyguard, but he insisted I have plausible deniability. There was only so much he'd let even me help. I could insult Uncle Paul (never Aunt Rachel, because even when he was pissed at her he thought she was right) but if I tried to do anything more than offer him a place to stay he'd stop talking to me. So I stopped offering and just...did nothing.

"I hate you and your logic."

"I know."

"Di?"

"Yeah?"

"What if he doesn't clue in? What if he just…"

"We'll figure something out," my sister promised me.

* * *

I was sitting around "watching movies" with Kara while my parents were out on patrol and Judy was off hanging out with friends and Dinah was doing something I didn't want to think about. I was minding my own business, just trying to convince my girlfriend that we should have sex. It was an argument I would have won, by the way, if Will hadn't shown up just then.

I'd seen him mad before—it was his default setting.

But that day...that day he was terrifying.

I heard him coming, so I was cussing and hurrying out of my room while I told Kara: "Put on your shirt."

"Your parents?" she squeaked.

That was all the time we had, really. At least she got her shirt on before he barged in (I got my pants up, if not completely done up, but it wasn't like my cousin noticed). He didn't even notice Kara in my bedroom doorway, just walked right up to me and shoved me in the chest.

"I'm not allowed to go hunting anymore?" he demanded. "You think I need a babysitter all the time? I'm not even allowed to go hunting?"

He shoved me again and this time I had to work to keep my balance; we didn't use that kind of force on each other.

"You can go hunting any time you want." I waved Kara back, because this was way too dangerous for her and I would never forgive myself if something happened to her. "But you don't need a gun to go hunting anymore."

Both of us could shoot, of course, but it had been years since Will touched Aunt Rachel's hunting rifle. And how much did I hate that I had been right to hide the bullets?

"I can hunt however I damn well want."

"As long as you don't use a gun."

"I'm so pathetic without her that I can't be trusted around guns?"

Well, yes. Not pathetic, just broken beyond belief...

Not that I said that out loud. He read it on my face anyway.

Will put me through the wall.


	17. Chapter 16

A/N: Kara is two years younger than Levi, but her birthday's sometime at the beginning of the year and his is in September and right now we're in June so she's sixteen.

* * *

After Will took off and I managed to pick myself up, I went over to Kara. Someone had to get her to stop screaming.

"I'm fine," I promised. "I'm fine."

"He..." All she could do was point to the nice view of the outside that now could be seen from my family room. "I thought you—"

She was crying now, but I didn't touch her. I wasn't sure what was on me, though I knew I had to get some of the splinters out of me soon or they were going to irritate me later. The plaster didn't matter, even if it itched a bit. The bruising...well, that was part of the reason why I hadn't hugged her yet. Every part of me seemed to hurt.

"I'm fine," I repeated. "Wolf stuff. Don't worry about it."

"Levi, you just got slammed through a building. That doesn't happen in real life."

Welcome to my world.

"I'm fine." As I dusted myself off, I got to more important matters. "How the hell am I going to hide that from my parents?"

I was a big guy. The hole in the wall was huge. This wasn't putting your fist through the dry wall, this was the side of my house open to the elements.

"Levi..."

It was stupid to provoke him like that, now that he was barely holding it together. At least he hadn't phased with Kara around. My parents would be upset (maybe even furious) but they would understand when I explained it to them. They owed him that much.

"Levi, he just walked in here and put you through a wall for no reason."

"He had a reason."

"You didn't support his _hunting trip_?"

There were only so many ways to kill yourself if you were indestructible. Death by vampire was only possible if there were vampires nearby. Will knew from Sam it was almost impossible to overdose as a werewolf (and I think he didn't want to go out that way for other reasons, too). There were simply no buildings tall enough around here to kill us. Hanging might work, but it would be hard to find something to support our weight and breaking you neck would be a crapshoot. Like slitting our wrists...chances were we'd heal up before we died.

Easiest to just blow your brains out.

You'd have to aim properly, of course (if you didn't, it would be beyond horrific), but that was the easiest, fastest, cleanest way to do it.

Will had always liked being efficient.

"He'll get over it. You okay?"

"No," she answered honestly. "No, I'm nowhere near okay, Levi. I thought he'd killed you. And you don't even seem to care."

"Will wouldn't hurt me."

"He just did!"

"Not even close."

She didn't look convinced. "And if I asked you to turn around so I could see your back, what would I see?"

Like hell I was going to show her my back. I didn't like scaring girls.

"It was nothing. It's different now. I can't expect...but he'll be alright, Kara. Sometimes he's a little unstable, but he always..."

"Levi?" She looked up at me with her big brown eyes. "That wasn't a little unstable. That was completely insane. Why would you want to cover for that?"

Because that's what we did.

When I thought my parents were fucked up beyond belief, he told me to screw them and looked out for me better than they ever had. When he got too mad, too fast, I calmed him down or smoothed things over. When things got bad at home, he stayed at my house. And when I wanted to run away, tired of all the lies, he talked me down, let me hit him a couple of times. We just...we looked out for each other.

But there was no way I could fix the hole in the wall. Everyone was bound to notice.

"Come on," I muttered. "I need to get you home now. I have to be back before my parents come home."

"What if he does that to someone else?"

"Drop it!"

For a second I was afraid she was going to cry again. Shit. I hadn't meant to be so loud. "Sorry. I didn't mean..."

"Well," she said slowly, "You did just get put through a wall."

I think she kept saying it to convince herself it had actually happened. If she was still in doubt, I had the bruises to prove it.

"You think he's…completely insane?"

Kara just took my hand. "No." Her expression became hesitant, scared of me, I think. I hated that. "I do think he...he might need some help."

Will didn't need help.

But for some reason I couldn't manage to say anything else as I walked Kara home.

* * *

On the way back from Kara's house, I stopped by my mom's work. It was my day off (hers too, but she was a workaholic) and so the other people there were surprised to see me. Or maybe it was just that I was covered in plaster and other debris.

"What happened to you?" my mother asked as I shut the door behind me, trapping us in her office.

There were pictures of us everywhere, the three of us at various ages. When we were little, the pictures were of the five of us together, because my parents could corral us into the same frame. As we got older the pictures were more individual. I was rarely beside my sisters anymore.

When I thought my father was just playing at the doting husband, Will was the only one who believed me. He was already busy back then (he did odd jobs, homework for other kids, dealt some pot) but he took the time to look out for me.

Most kids on the rez start with huffing (it was cheapest) but Will never had time for that. It kills your brain cells, he'd tell me, all the while popping pills like candy. He'd always had trouble sleeping and he didn't have time to try now, so he had a little help staying awake. That's all.

I didn't say anything, just made sure that when he crashed I was there to look after him. He said he wasn't an addict and I needed to believe him. I told myself I could handle it. Looking back, I hadn't been able to handle it all. But I hadn't wanted to risk not having him there. I couldn't not have him there—he was my cousin, my brother, my best friend, my other half (and it was probably even gayer than it sounded).

"Will put me through the wall. I think...I think he...can you help him?"

For some reason my mother thought I needed to be hugged just then; maybe it was because I was crying like I was three. I just didn't know what the hell I was doing anymore. And I knew that whatever happened next Will was not going to forgive me.

"Okay," Mom said. "Let me call your father."

"Don't—"

"This is a pack matter now, Levi."

I didn't like the sound of that.

* * *

Nor did I like the way the adults gathered at my house were talking. Dad had sent Embry and Seth out to find Will (I told them to check the cliff first) but the pack had to figure out what to do when Will came back.

"We could lock him up."

I growled at my uncle, shutting him up fast, even if my aunt gave pretty good glare herself. My aunt and uncle didn't have much in common, but it only seemed to matter when they were talking about what to do with Will. Then not only did they disagree, but they got mean (they made up, of course; they couldn't help making up).

"Our son is trying to kill himself and you want to put him in a cage?"

"He's not trying to kill himself," I muttered. Everyone ignored me.

"If he might kill someone, then, yeah, Rachel, I do. I'm not letting him live with that."

"If he attacked Levi there's no telling who he'll go after," Mom said.

"Please," my aunt said, "Tell me we're not sitting around wondering how this is going to affect all of you. For twenty years you've been telling me I can't help my son—heaven forbid the doctors figure out there's something wrong with his father's blood! After all that time, there must be something you can do for him._____"_

"Babe, if he can't control his temper—"

"He didn't phase," I reminded them.

He wasn't angry; he was just a mess.

"Maybe if he stopped phasing," Mom suggested. "If he wasn't super strong we could—"

"There's no way he could stop," Paul sighed. "I couldn't have stopped for years. What about the Cullens? The doctor?"

"He's a doctor, not a psychologist," Mom said.

"So what do we do?" Didn't I sound five?

My father spoke.

"Paul is going to fix my house. Rachel, you're going home because the last thing your son needs right now is to accidentally hurt you. And I know," he said before she could protest, "I know you're his mother. And I know I've been asking you to do this for years, but I need you to trust me one more time. And Levi?"

"Yeah?"

"You need to get out of here, too."

"But I—"

"You need to let me take care of this now. This isn't a debate. Now move."

Mom kissed me on the cheek, promised everything would okay, before she let me take Rachel home. We couldn't just walk through town because she started crying at some point and couldn't stop, but I brought her to the trees and let her get it out of her system.

"What do I tell Ben?" she asked miserably. "What do...how did I let it come to this?"

She was staring at the cuts on my shoulders. They would heal up soon enough, so I just shrugged.

"Come on."

* * *

My father came to get me at my aunt's house. We went for a walk on the beach afterwards, to talk things over. He needed to make sure we weren't overheard—and that I couldn't hurt anyone if I freaked out.

"So?"

"Seth is going to take Will with him to Canada."

"What?"

It didn't come out anywhere close to defiant.

"He can't stay here. We all know that. He stays here, the next guy he talks to will be lucky to escape with a few broken bones."

"But Canada?"

"We're lucky Nessie found a place where they speak English."

Then he explained it to me. The Cullens were doing something helpful up there and Seth had volunteered himself and my cousin to move supplies across the snow. Werewolves were apparently cheaper than hiring planes.

"You're going to ship him to Canada?"

"Will agreed, Levi. He wasn't happy about it, but he agreed. Embry and Seth helped...Sam helped. And...well, we're pretty sure he wouldn't have even listened to us in the first place if he didn't know it's what you wanted."

It wasn't what I wanted. I wanted him here with me. I just...I guess I wanted him better more than that. Not that it made me feel any less guilty.

"So hanging out in Canada is going to make him better?" Just because Canadians were supposed to be nice...

"Keeping busy will help him—as will getting away from here. When he comes back a little bit calmer we'll see where we can go from there."

"That's not really reassuring."

My father sighed. "I'm a werewolf. Not—I'm sorry I can't just fix everything for you."

I was too.

"We try this," my father continued. "If it doesn't work, we try something else. I'm sorry it took us so long to do something."

Yeah.

"It was terrifying when Will first phased," my father told me. "Not just because we had stupidly hoped you'd be safe, but... I knew you two weren't girl scouts— " he growled at me a little, for all the shit I had gotten up to that I hadn't told him about "— But I didn't think...I didn't have time. There always seemed to be someone who was trying to stop phasing or a vampire that was running onto our land or someone who's temper wasn't as controlled as it should be and..."

"You can't look after everyone." Hell, for the longest time Will was the only one I looked after and look how well that turned out.

"You should have been first."

"You tried." I remembered that; I had been too angry to care. But it meant enough, now. "I like to think we were just too clever for you guys to figure out."

"Maybe that was it."

But the joke didn't make either of us laugh. Instead, Dad sighed and spoke again.

"Thank you."

"What?"

"For letting me help this time."

I wasn't sure how to respond to that so I just asked: "When's he going? And when can I see him?"

"Tomorrow." I glared at my dad a little bit, even if I saw the logic. "You can't go by tonight. Rachel will decapitate anyone who ruins their last night together."

"And tomorrow?"

My dad sighed. "We'll see how he feels tomorrow."

* * *

When I couldn't sleep that night I went for a run. When even that didn't help, I went up to the cliffs. Will wasn't there. Of course he wasn't there. I didn't expect him to be. But I...I went for another run. And when I still couldn't sleep I headed to the forest to see my uncle.

"So you're leaving tomorrow?"

"Looks that way," he shrugged. Seth stayed on a porch so I got a beer for him and an apple for me and joined him.

"Do you think..." I sighed. "I'm such a screw up I don't think I ever apologized. I acted like an asshole about your...uh, imprint."

He nodded and that was that.

"At least Will's not a raging alcoholic yet. Right?"

He laughed; even now he laughed, like I had wanted him to. What was wrong with us?

"He'll be fine, Levi. Maybe not in a month, or even a year, but he will be. And when he gets there he's going to know you do the best you could for him."

"You really think he's ever going to see it that way?"

I was a damn rat.

"You really think there's anything you could do that he wouldn't forgive you for without even thinking about it?"

"He's still pissed about Kara."

But I felt a tiny bit better. I let myself hope Seth was right. And since Seth could understand better than I could and was going to be there, I hoped my uncle would be able to help.

"Thanks for taking him," I muttered.

"It's no trouble. I always like Canada."

"I don't get it. How can you not like being here?"

"I love being here. That's why I always come back. I just..." he trailed off, sipping his beer, buying himself some time. "I just love it out there, too."

"Did..." Okay, I knew I was getting into stuff that wasn't really my business. But I was curious; I needed to know. "The stuff you love out there...is that one of the reasons you're not still depressed about your imprint?"

He frowned, staring me for a long while. "Was that supposed to be English?"

"Did screwing the redhead help?"

This time his laughter must have echoed through the whole damn state. "Oh, man," he managed to gasp out, "You're supposed to be the next Alpha?"

That rankled. All my instincts did not like hearing him make fun of me in that way. Maybe that's why I was a little blunter than I should have been.

"So you've never slept with her?"

It was the closest I had ever seen my uncle to angry (which meant he wasn't grinning like an idiot, but still, on him it was startling to see).

"I didn't get over_ her_ by—" I was his nephew. He bit back the words and continued, "Especially with Nessie, who was like, six or ten or seven or something at the time. Levi..." He sighed. "Trying that with Will is probably the worst thing you could do. It would just hurt him and the girl and...he'll probably hate himself for trying to forget Marlena for a long while. Just give him time."

"I've never been very patient."

"No." I think I heard him sigh again. "No, you haven't. I blame both your parents."

"Uncle Seth?"

"Yeah, Levi?"

"You're better now, though. Right?"

"Yeah."

"Now...now it just helps that she's super hot?"

I couldn't help myself. Plus, I was sure I was right. Remembering just how tight that suit had clung to her, I was sure I was right. You didn't travel for hours in an outfit like that if you weren't trying to get laid.

Seth didn't say anything, just took another sip of beer. I had almost decided to move on when he spoke.

"Kid?" He hesitated for a second, then said, "I think I'm going to tell you a secret."

"Sure thing."

My uncle laughed: "It just helps that she's there."

* * *

When I showed up at my aunt's house the next day it was to find my cousin was already gone. Aunt Rachel looked apologetic, but explained it was better this way. "He did leave you a letter," she said, handing it over.

I felt kind of sick as I opened it.

_The verdict is in—one month hard labour._

_Fleeing the country doesn't look good, but I don't owe anyone anything, whatever they try to tell you. Keep your eye out, just in case. It pays to be careful. _

The rest of the letter wasn't for me. No, I guess it was. It might have been addressed to Brian, might have concerned the Uleys and their money, but Will wasn't writing it because they meant anything to him. He was writing this because I had asked him to help them (hell, because he knew I'd want to help them; before I knew Sam had a problem, Will looked out for the Uleys because he knew that's what I'd want). Even after what I had done, he still tried to look out for me. I had gotten him shipped to Canada and he still...

_Levi,_ he wrote_, you have to make Brian get it. They can't afford Sam and school. Not unless they can pull money from air. It's just basic math._

_I have to wrap this up; Seth is practically jumping for joy at the thought of taking off. You're an asshole, Levi. Took you long enough to get rid of me._

And at the bottom of the letter there was a postscript.

_Be safe. Last thing I need is to be a godfather right now._

* * *

"What an asshole," Brian declared as he folded up the letter and handed it back to me. We were sitting at his kitchen table, waiting for his father to get home so we could make sure he didn't wake the boys who were already asleep.

"Yeah."

"You'd really pick him to be the godfather?"

I couldn't help laughing, which was what Brian had been going for. It helped, a little. "Yeah. Though I think you're the beta now."

I trusted Brian to have my back, to help me look after others and to offer up another opinion (I could tell what Will was going to say without thinking by now). If I had a kid, Brian would be the better influence…but if something happened to me, Will would do anything for my kid without thought. No matter what it took. Might as well give him the credit for it.

"The beta in a pack of two. I'm honored."

"Shut up."

Our grins slowly faded, because we really were pathetic just about now. And I still couldn't believe I had gotten my best friend shipped to Canada.

"Levi?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad I became a werewolf. Even if it made everything a thousand times more complicated, I don't know what I would have done without you."

Claws and fangs didn't make things better, just made you think you were more prepared to fight even though you weren't. But if I was going to be woefully unprepared for life, at least I had claws.

"Thanks."

* * *

When I got home I went to my room to be alone. I couldn't handle Dinah right now. Maybe she would gloat. Worse, maybe she would be sorry. I couldn't deal. But when the knock came on my door, it was Judy who was standing there, tub of jujubes in her hand.

"Did they really send Will away?" she asked as she sat down beside me, legs crossed. She offered me the candy, so I took some. The sweetness almost made me choke, but I made myself swallow.

"Yeah. Canada."

"Well, that's…cool. I mean—"

"I know what you meant."

"Levi?"

"Yeah, Jubes?"

"I guess this means you're going to be the one to teach me how to drive."

"He would have screwed it up, anyway."

But she hugged me then because I think she knew I would have let him teach her how to drive if he was just here.


	18. Chapter 17

The summer seemed to go on forever. Work was boring—and it was the only thing keeping me from going completely insane.

Nothing happened on patrols, which meant all I had to do for the majority of my time was think about how the pack was getting smaller. The day after we sent Will away Embry came to our house to have a very long, very quiet conversation with my father. My mother sat beside me, the two of us not even bothering to pretend we weren't eavesdropping. It was pack business and someone had to look after my old man.

"I just don't want Marian to have to worry about me. She..." Embry sighed. "I need to be there, right now."

"We can cut down patrols," my father offered.

From the sound of it, Embry shook his head.

"Okay," Dad said. It took him a second to collect himself, but he pushed on like this didn't matter to him. "You know the drill by now. Stop phasing. When you start feeling like you have to, take off work and get yourself alone. Seth's gone; you can crash at the Cullens' , if you want. Come back when you're finished and..."

Silence descended over the two men. Mom sighed ever so quietly beside me.

"I'm going to miss having your annoying thoughts in my head," my father told his best friend.

"Yeah." Embry's sigh probably could be heard for miles. "I'm going to miss it. I just can't—I don't want to be in the kid's head, Jake. I can't—I miss her too much as it is."

"We all miss her," Dad promised.

"I'm sorry I'm letting you all down."

"Don't be an idiot, Embry."

"I'm the first to abandon ship." Embry tried to laugh. "I'm leaving you with Paul."

"You're right. You should be sorry."

The two old men laughed together the way they always did. Then I heard the sound of the hugging and nothing more for a long time.

"One down, four to go," my mother murmured. Then she gazed at me, studied me the way she studied everyone who walked into her office, to see if they were competent enough for her to talk to. "Can you figure out the patrol schedule for me? I've got work to do and your father to distract."

My father and Embry Call had only been friends forever. Before he retired, I knew Embry would make sure to go for one last run with my father and Quil. Some friendships were forever, after all.

"Yeah, I'll get on that."

It wasn't enough to distract me, but I didn't think much could.

* * *

One of the few things that did help was Kara.

After what had happened with Will, she was a little on edge around me and I couldn't exactly blame her. It was one thing to have heard the stories, to know I could theoretically break her in two. It was another thing to see the proof of it. So I understood that she was a little nervous about getting too close now that she knew what I could do. I wished I could fix it, of course, but I understood.

At least she still let me come around.

Even if I whined. Just a little bit.

"I sent my cousin to Canada for you."

"You sent him to Canada for him."

"But my way sounds much more romantic—" and less painful "—if we say I did it for you."

Kara was not impressed. "But you didn't."

I growled. It used to make her laugh when I did something so wolfish. Today she jumped. When Will came back I was going to kick his ass.

"Hey. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

"You don't," she lied.

But to make me feel better she did stay in my lap, even rested her head on my shoulder. She was so tiny and adorable. Maybe because I was so hungry, but she made me think of cookie dough (it would have also made my hard but she was still too freaked for that).

"I wouldn't hurt you," I promised. "I'm more controlled than that."

"I never thought…I know you wouldn't push me like that."

"Good."

"It's just…never mind."

"You can't do that. You have to tell me." When that didn't work, I tried kissing her a few times. I had magic lips. It worked, eventually.

"You're not going to end up leaving for Canada, or wherever, right?"

"No. Of course not." I had to kiss her then because she looked so sad and lonely (and she had plump lips that I couldn't help kissing). "I'm not going anywhere."

"Good."

"And if you try to leave I will just track you down."

That got her to smile. She was so cute when she smiled. And she got even cuter when she started teasing me.

"You'd have to catch me first."

I had her pinned underneath me on the couch before she could blink. "I don't think that's going to be a problem."

But she didn't look scared, just stared up at me with her big brown eyes, trying to look inside my brain or something. Her hands were small, just like the rest of her, but whatever she was doing to my face felt nice so I let her keep going.

All she said was, "How am I going to get you food if I'm stuck underneath you?"

"I think I'd rather have you pinned than eat."

"You're so romantic." But she was giggling and adorable and mine, so I just kissed her some more.

And it helped. For a little while.

* * *

After Embry stopped phasing, the pack was down to my parents, Sam and Paul, me and Brian and Quil Ateara, who was planning on stopping when Embry got back. Seth and Will didn't count, though we still sometimes got to hear their thoughts.

They were mostly working as wolves, moving things across the snow where trucks and planes refused to tread. _I think I'm fucking Balto_, Will said to me one night. It was nice getting to talk, even if the adults were pretty obvious about not letting us talk alone. I don't know what they were worried about—whatever it was I was sure we had already done it.

_You almost there?_ I asked.

He checked with Seth, who was always phased when Will phased lately (because dog sledding worked best with two). It helped, I think, being in Seth's head, not only because he understood but because my uncle had never been depressed in his life. It was hard to stay down around him.

_Ten more minutes._

They were travelling extra fast tonight. Apparently they were meeting Dad's soul mate in Yellowknife and they didn't want to be late. Politeness demanded it, after all.

By the time they got there, Will would be too exhausted to do much else but meet her and collapse into bed. He had been right about it being hard labour; they were trying to work him into feeling better.

It was helping, I guess. I had never seen my cousin sleep so much in my life.

_I'll talk to you tomorrow, then?_ he asked. It was almost time for my patrol to end.

_Yeah._

Things were still a bit awkward between us but I was determined to get over it. I think he was too. We were never going to talk about why he had been angry with me that day. Duh. But we could talk about other things and maybe one day things could go back to the way they were. Or not. We knew that was impossible. I don' t think I wanted everything to go back to the way it was. But a new normal, one that didn' t suck...we were determined to work towards that.

* * *

After patrol I headed to Brian's house. They were finishing up dinner by the time I got there, but Brian got up to get me a plate of what little leftovers were left. Unfortunately, Sam was having a good day.

"It's fine," I called as I plopped down beside my sister on the bench they had in their backyard. They had always been big on eating together. "I already ate."

"And you're hungry," Sam said. "Stay for desert."

Normally, I would have bristled at the order. But desert...I let it go.

"We were going to play tag football after dinner," Dinah said. "Can you stay?"

"We get Levi," one of the twins called. Because I was totally awesome.

"Not fair," Artie argued. "You already have Brian and Dinah."

Sam might be bigger than his oldest son, but there was no stopping Dinah.

"Let's find out if he can stay before we start fighting over him," Sam warned his boys. "Okay?"

Since Kim wasn't working tonight I didn't have much else to do with my time. So I took the plate Brian offered and said I might be able to squeeze in a game or two.

The boys got down to arguing about teams while I ate. Brian and I talked, mostly (and I tried not to notice the way he and my sister were holding hands—my sister was brain damaged and there was nothing I could do about it) but Sam and Dinah kept up their ends of the conversation in between trying to get the younger boys to solve their problem with their words.

"Can we play yet?" Tommy begged.

"Don't you want desert?" Dinah said.

It was amazing how that worked.

She turned to Brian so she could offer to get it; he kissed her on the cheek to say thank you. I tried not to growl out loud. I think I managed. Then I caught Sam's eye and knew I wasn't the only one who wanted to shake some sense into my sister and the guy who wasn't really her boyfriend.

"Can I talk to you for a minute, Levi?"

Sam's voice startled me out of my plans for murder.

"Yeah," I blurted out before I realized what I was saying. But since I had already agreed… "Sure, Sam."

Brian looked at me questioningly but I could only shrug as I followed Sam into his house. Dinah looked surprised to see us in the kitchen but he just walked past her without a word and out his front door.

"Save some for me," I begged. She rolled her eyes, but I swear I saw her take some of the cookies off the plate. Big sisters weren't all bad.

When I joined him outside, Sam made sure the door was firmly shut behind him before he spoke. I guess he didn't want Brian overhearing.

"Your sister needs to stop coming here."

"She's a big girl. She goes where she wants."

"It's disrespectful to Ginger."

"That's Brian's call, not mine."

"He will leave your sister, you understand."

Of course I understood that. But I also understood now why Will wasn't content with ignoring Sam the way he ignored the rest of the older pack (the way they had ignored him) but actively hated the guy. The condescension was pissing me off.

"Hear you loud and clear, Sam."

"You just don't care. About your own sister," he added for emphasis.

"Like I said, it's Brian's call."

"Letting the pack make their own mistakes hasn't really worked out for your father, now has it?"

"Where in the hell do you get off acting morally superior?" It didn't come out angry—I was too surprised to be angry. My mind was boggling at how little sense it made.

Sam flushed, a little (as he should), but still kept going. "I'm not wrong about this. I might not be able to make my son listen, but I am asking you, as his Alpha, to help him see reason."

"That he just has to give in because destiny says so? He just has to give up?" I stared down Sam, until he was desperately looking at the door, trying to escape. "Like hell I'm going to do that. It might be a little bit messy but I wouldn't have it any other way. He can screw up if he needs to. Same with Dinah."

"That is just going to end with them hurt."

"Then they'll hurt and I will be there, for both of them." I couldn't help adding, "You know, if things were different, all you would have to do is hint to Brian that you disapproved and he wouldn't let Di within three hundred feet of your house."

"But things aren't different."

"And whose fault is that?"

All he could do was shake his head.

"Christ, Sam, what the fuck is wrong with you? Doesn't it bother you that Brian doesn't listen to you anymore? That the boys don't trust you? Does it matter that your daughter might never come home again?"

His jaw clenched but he said nothing. And it pissed me off so much I crossed more lines than I wanted to.

"Closest thing to ever seeing your wife again and you don't care she's never coming back?"

"Only from one side."

I shut up for a second because I hung around Will and I never heard self-loathing like that.

"Sam—"

"We had a disagreement," he said slowly. "Francine and I. You might not respect my wishes but my children do. So, no, it doesn't bother me that she might never come back. She deserves better than this. They all deserve...more."

"You could at least try to do something about that."

"What do you know about it? You don't understand what it's like, to have her, to lose her. You don't know what Brian's risking—"

"So what if I don't understand?" Until I joined their stupid little club, they weren't going to let me forget I didn't belong. Screw them all. "It's Brian's call. Brian's decision. Nothing you say could ever change that."

Sam stared at me, partially opened mouth. I wanted to tell him to go to hell, or at least shut his trap. But I was shaking too hard to bother with words. I might wish my sister would come to her senses because seeing her kissing anyone was vile and disgusting, but like hell I was going to drag her away from him.

"You really are your father's son."

"Damn straight."

"Levi—" I stopped my storming away, even though it ruined the drama. I suppose I could listen.

"Brian's wrong. Won't you make him see that?"

"No."

"All right then."

His calm acceptance of the situation grated, but I managed some sort of stormy exit, anyway.

* * *

The final run with Embry turned my parents into the emotional wrecks I expected. Dinah went to comfort Brian in ways I did not want to think about, so I took Judy to the beach to hang. We hadn't done that in a while and it was nice to be around someone who wasn't talking constantly about wolf stuff.

Even though she was clearly still related to the rest of us.

"Should we stop by the Calls?" she asked on the way home.

Of course not. Why did we have to check up on people? Marian was at home, she was an adult, what did she need us for? Not that I said any of that. I just changed direction.

"Stop being responsible," I warned her.

"Don't worry. You'll always be a bad an influence on me."

"Shut up, Jubes."

Tickling her didn't work, so I swore revenge. I said I would read her diary. Not that I would find anything good in there because I don't think Judy remembered she had a diary most days and had probably told everyone everything in it anyway, but it made her shriek, so I was still the king.

By the time we got to Embry's, we had almost forgotten the really awful circumstances that had led us there. We remembered, unfortunately, when I went to knock. I wasn't about to chicken out in front of my little sister, but I was sorely tempted.

Bert didn't say anything as he opened the door. Then he blinked, which I figured was his way of asking what we were doing there.

"We were in the area."

I was an idiot. Bertie thought so too. Rolling his eyes, he shut the door in my face. What the hell?

Judy burst out laughing, because little sister's were mean like that. I didn't look that funny. My mouth was only partially open. "You wanna try?" I snapped.

She cracked her knuckles, shook her body out (it wouldn't do to have tension when you knocked on a door—you might get cramps, she explained) and tightened her ponytail. Now prepared for battle, she knocked. I knew it was going to work before she even knocked because I could hear Bert chuckling form the other side of the door. We should have covered the peephole.

"Hey," she chirped when he opened the door a second time. "Can we come in?"

For a second I thought he was going to say no, but at last he shrugged. Then he opened the door for us.

"Thanks a bunch."

"Your mom around?" I asked.

"She's out."

"Where?"

"Out."

Conversationalist of the year, this kid was. It was the easiest thing in the world, talking to Marley. I don't think I had missed her quite as much as I missed her just then. She would have found us something to eat, chatting the whole while about something everyone was interested in. And she sure as hell wouldn't have been glaring the whole time.

Fortunately, if Marley could talk to anybody, Judy could talk to them and the walls.

"They told us your Dad was going to go live in the forest for a couple of weeks. Personally, I think that's kind of dumb. Uncle Seth said he could borrow that ginormous old mansion thing and that's got to be way more comfortable than a tent in the woods. Right?"

Bert shrugged, which Judy seemed to take as a sign to continue.

"And if I was trying to not be angry all the time, I wouldn't want to sleep on the forest floor."

"Hopefully Dad won't get into a fight with a tree."

I blinked, but Judy took it in stride, just giggling, then running with it. "My Dad would. He'd find the biggest tree in the forest, then accuse of it of being in his spot."

"Who do you think would win?"

This was my kind of conversation.

"Depends on if the tree's had a good night's sleep or not."

"And if Dad's been around you," Judy told me.

"Ha ha. Dad thinks I'm awesome."

"And irritating." Okay, just because his sister had died, didn't mean Bert was allowed to talk to me like that.

But Judy did not share my moral outrage. The traitor was just nodding along. "And annoying. And mouthy. And—"

"We got it," I assured her. "Now stop talking."

"Or you'll kick her out of the country?"

Oh hell no. I didn't have to take that. I hadn't done anything—fuck, I hadn't done anything, just let them take him away.

"Levi?" Judy was standing between me and Bert. I hated that look on her face; she shouldn't be worried about anything. Ever. "Maybe you should go outside and see if Marian's coming."

And when I didn't move she just stared up at me with her big dark eyes, begging me to do this. So I went because I couldn't help and I didn't want to punch the kid. I mean, his sister had just died, right?

I couldn't help eavesdropping. That was just what I was built for nowadays.

"I miss Will, too," Judy scolded. I loved that girl. "But he needed to go away and it's not Levi's fault. You talk to my brother like that again and I'll kick your ass."

"I can run away pretty fast."

The poor kid was powerless against my sister, however, because he got serious pretty fast. I hated that. Sounding far too old, he said, "Marley would have wanted us to look after him. Not…"

"And you will. When he gets back. When he's better. Marley would get that."

"Would she?"

He was asking so much more than that. He was asking because he was never going to be sure again. He was asking where she'd gone and if he was ever going to see her again and all the hundred billion questions we all shouted to the sky because she just wasn't there.

"Yeah," Judy said confidently. "She would. Hey, do you have cards or something? Levi sucks at poker when he can't cheat."

"Yeah," Bert agreed.

For the record I did not suck at cards—if I lost money, it was because I felt sorry for the kid. And I'm pretty sure Will had taught him how to stack the deck.

* * *

At the beginning of August, one day when work ended, my parents didn't tell me it was time to get home. Instead they sat me in a chair and leaned against the desk across from me, both of them crossing their arms over their chest in a way that was kind of scary.

"Yes?"

"There's something we need your opinion about," Mom began.

"We want you to hear us out before you interrupt one way or another, okay, Levi?"

That sounded bad. But I promised.

They gave each other reassuring smiles (which I found totally not reassuring) and then Dad motioned for Mom to get on with it. But she shook her head so he started.

"Sam wants to stop phasing." My father held up a hand, reminding me I had promised. They should have warned me if they were going to start talking crazy. "He came to us a few days ago. He's been thinking about it for over a month, which is the length of time we usually demand they consider..."

Embry had been an exception.

Mom continued, "His temper was never really a problem. Keeping control of that shouldn't be an issue."

I couldn't hold it in any more. "It's not his temper he needs to control! It's the drinking."

"We know," Dad snapped. "That's why—"

"We know," Mom interrupted, calming us both down. "That's why we're having this conversation. Should we let him try to stop?"

"Why wouldn't we let him at least try? If he wants to..." I frankly couldn't believe it. What had changed? Why now? Had he just snapped? Or was he just pissed he couldn't make Brian do what he wanted?

"The first few days after Will phased were bad," Dad began bluntly. "They were really, really bad because he burned through what he used to take too fast and we didn't dare give him anything else. Sam would be the opposite. He'd...we don't know, actually."

"Have you talked to the vampire doctor?"

"He doesn't know what will happen, either. It might just cure him. Or it might..."

When his body (and mind) started craving all the shit he took now, which would kill anyone who wasn't a werewolf, what would happen? My parents were asking if they thought we should let him stop phasing knowing it might just kill him.

"Let me talk to Brian, okay? And I'll get back to you."

My parents nodded in unison. My mother tried to smile reassuringly. It didn't work. It was my father who said, "That's fine."


	19. Chapter 18

A/N: Quick run down of ages. Year 1-Will Y2-Brian/Francine/Dinah Y3-Marlena/Levi Y4-Baxter Y5-Kara/Bert Y6-Judy Y7-Arthur Y9-Timmy/Tommy Y13-Benjamin. So...say, Baxter is two years older than Judy, or Dinah is eleven years older than Benji. Levi's about to turn 18.

And yes, a lot happens this chapter. It was a very eventful summer.

* * *

"It's about freaking time," Dinah said.

For once, Brian completely ignored my sister (unlike the way it was impossible for me to ignore how he had his arm around her waist. All I wanted was a little respect and they couldn't even give me that. My life was a struggle). He was frowning at the floor and the ceiling and the walls. Nothing was giving him the answers.

"You think he should do it then, darling?"

They made me want to puke.

"He wants to do it. He owes you this. Of course you should let him."

In Dinah's mind, I was sure there was no question that Sam could, now that he had made up his mind. That people couldn't do what they wanted, sometimes, would never enter her head.

"What does Will say?"

I raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment on how funny it was seeing Brian ask for Will's professional advice. I answered honestly.

"Will thinks it'll kill him. If detoxing doesn't, and Will thinks it should, then he thinks Sam'll overdose right after when he relapses."

My cousin was an optimist.

(And he really didn't like talking about what it had been like when he first phased).

"He just doesn't like the idea of someone getting to choose to get clean," Dinah said. "Besides the vampire doctors will be there. It's not like he won't have people looking after him. It'll be easier for him that way."

Nessie and her grandfather had offered to come and supervise. Mom had been a little testy because the half-vampire sounded more curious than concerned, but for whatever reason, they were going to help. Sam needed all the help he could get.

"What do you think?" Brian asked me.

"I think it's risky. I think Sam knows that. I think we need to let him. If we weren't wolves, it would be his decision."

Brian nodded.

"Should I tell Francy?" he asked my sister. I wasn't invited to that conversation even though it was happening right in front of me. They had been the three musketeers, after all. Months of estrangement and secrets couldn't change that.

"How would she understand why you don't want to let him do this? Unless you explained to her about the wolf stuff— "

"The rule is you can't tell unless they're on the rez."

"So ask her to come home," Dinah said as if it were obvious. It was obvious. It's why Dad was still sticking to the rule, after all. We all figured at least one of the Uleys would have given in by now. No such luck.

"Dad's talking to the boys tonight." Brian moved the conversation along. They really were too scared of her refusing to even try. "Your mom's offered to move in if he goes."

"What are you telling them?" Dinah asked.

Let her be the one to push him. He had enough people pushing him around; I waited for him to figure his stuff out.

Eventually, he nodded at me. "If he wants to, we let him."

* * *

So we let him.

Brian tried to keep most of what happened with his father to himself and I respected that, but I caught enough that I could have made fun of him for years for how weepy they all were. I didn't. I understood a bit, now. I was glad the boys believed Sam when he said he was sorry. For their sake, I hope he could make good on that.

They even called Francy, who didn't understand the danger, but couldn't help pick up on it because her family was more subtle than mine, but not by much. But at least she got to say goodbye to her father just in case…just in case.

Mom moved into their house and Sam took off to the Cullen house, two Cullen doctors in tow (and one Mrs Dr Cullen who made amazing pies— she sent a few over and even Mom loved them). Embry came back, human, and Quil said he was next in line. Will and Seth were traipsing across the Great White North.

And then at the end of August, we were just sitting around eating dinner when Uncle Seth came through the door and asked if he could have something to eat.

Judy was up and hugging him before the rest of us could process, while he laughed. "Did you bring me anything?"

"Maple syrup. Fresh from the airport."

"Hee. It's shaped like a leaf."

"And it tastes great."

"Ew. You can't eat maple syrup by itself."

"Says who?" Leaving Judy to puzzle that out, he hugged Mom and then looked to my father, ready to make his report. Dad just laughed and told him to pull up a chair and leave something for the rest of us. Dinah handed over the food but I didn't want to wait until Seth had finished eating.

"Where's Will?"

"I dropped him off at home. He said he'd come by tomorrow."

Maybe. Just in case, I waited until nine, when Benji was probably asleep, and then excused myself form the table.

* * *

Will was waiting for me by the cliffs.

He was thinner. Not the way he used to be, where his collar bone looked sharp enough to cut, but he'd lost enough weight that I couldn't help noticing. I watched him for a minute as he sat by the edge of the cliff, fingers tapping erratically on his knee. His hair was longer, but other than that…wearing the clothes he had left behind it was almost like he had been here the whole time.

"You just going to stand there all night or are you going to say something?" he asked the sky.

I laughed and he turned to grin at me. His eyes weren't like they had been during the funeral, but they weren't…he was here and he was grinning, so I sat down beside him. I even hit him on the back; he was definitely thinner. Tougher, though. They'd been working hard.

"How was the vacation?"

"Shitty. They're not paying me."

"That sucks."

We sat in silence for a long while, but it was better than I had dared hope. And eventually, he started to talk.

"I'm not sure what they were hoping for. I still don't want to give back to the fucking community, though I'll acknowledge that there are some places that make here seem like some sort of haven."

"I think they just don't want you doing any more structural damage."

"Then they'll be glad to know I haven't hit anyone in months."

"Glad to hear it."

"Yeah." The next comment came out as more of a whisper. "I still miss her."

"Yeah."

"But I think," he continued, louder than before, "Somewhere between all the fucking snow I managed to forgive her, so there's that. Hey, did you know it's bright for like twenty-four hours a day in some places up there?"

"That sucks."

"No. No, it was...the manual labour probably helped, but I don't think I've slept that well since I was a kid."

There was relief in his voice. I wanted to laugh. All he really needed was a good night's rest? I guess it couldn't hurt.

"That's good, then."

"Yeah. And the hunting was great. Polar bear is pretty tasty."

"Cool. So?"

"So?"

"Is my uncle fucking my dad's soul mate?"

It made him laugh, not the way he laughed back in June and not the way he used to laugh before. It was quieter than it used to be, though no less bitter. It was still familiar, still Will, and it made me laugh, too.

"I had a couple of other things to worry about. She's okay, though. Once she showed up we didn't have to sleep outside all the damn time. Sometimes she'd find us beds."

"Which she shared with…?"

"Honestly? I fell asleep." He sounded so damn happy about it I didn't even care that he didn't know. "We'd show up somewhere—having carried her ass around all day, along with whatever it was she wanted delivered, by the way—and I'd pass out. It was great."

"You're useless."

"Sorry."

No, he wasn't.

Asshole.

So I was smiling like an idiot when Brian showed up.

"Good to see you again," he said. Will nodded and let Brian take a seat.

"They're making me take your dad to these meetings." Unspoken was the part where they were making Will go to meetings, the way they hadn't before. Avid admirer or addict, the pack wanted outside help with some of Will's problems.

"Yeah. He's…he wants to go."

"Can't believe he lived through it."

Even though the weeks had been rough, Sam was actually one of the quickest wolves to stop phasing. If he hadn't had his other problems to deal with, he might have been home in two weeks flat. His temper had never been the problem; it was his grief that we were still worried about.

"He couldn't have done it without Carlisle," Brian admitted. In debt to a vampire—weren't we terrible werewolves? It was good for Sam, I privately thought, being in debt like that. Just like it was good for him to be going with Will. They would be good for each other if they could just get over their respective egos.

"How's it with the boys?" I asked.

"They're a little…it's strange. I mean, it's just been a few days, but we're adjusting. It's nice having him….it's nice."

"You're really just going to trust him like that again?" Will asked.

"He's my dad."

I wanted that. Unlike Sam, I think my father had earned it. Not just because he'd never given me nightmares or disappeared at night, though Paul and Sam hadn't exactly set high standards. But he'd protected us the best way he could and now he was even listening to me.

"Your choice." For Will, that was pretty diplomatic. Of course, two months in Canada hadn't changed him all that much. He still couldn't hold his tongue. "What the fuck does being that stupidly nice ever get you?"

"I don't know," Brian sighed. "What does being an asshole get you?"

"Shipped to Canada."

"I'm going to declare this one a draw," I said. "You're both losers."

So it turned out that when they worked together, Brian and Will could take me out. Who knew?

* * *

"What are you doing?" Dad asked, coming up behind me.

"Sitting," I answered. Duh. The porch might not have been the most comfortable place to sit, but I wasn't cold. Everyone had come over to celebrate that fact Will wasn't in a(n obvious) suicidal downward spiral anymore, but they were long gone. After walking Kara home, I hadn't wanted to go inside just yet. My family was supposed to be asleep.

"Your mother told me to tell you you're going to catch a cold." He laughed. In the middle of the summer, as a werewolf? Mom was getting sloppy.

"You telling me to get my ass inside?"

"I ever do that?"

"Once. That time me and Dinah got in a snowball fight for six hours and I started turning blue."

Dad's laugh burst through the quiet night air, destroying the silence carelessly. "You didn't listen to me then, either."

But he had picked me up and dumped me in a warm bath and Mom had gotten the blanket Grandma gave her for special occasions and wrapped me up. Then we had hot chocolate and I got to stay up late watching movies. Almost dying in snow balls fights was awesome. Everything was awesome when you were twelve.

"She getting worried?"

"She always worries; something about you being important, or something."

We smiled at one another then, me and my Dad, and it was really nice, all of a sudden. Maybe that's why I opened my damn trap about what was eating at me.

"I'm glad he's back but what if...I don't even know. What if?"

"We're going to keep an eye on him this time, Levi."

They should be less obvious about it. It was annoying Will. _I got by with half a father for the longest time. Why the hell do they think I need ten of them all of a sudden?_ he whined on the last patrol. It didn't mean I wasn't grateful.

"What if that doesn't help?"

"The worrying comes with the territory."

"Yeah, well, it sucks."

"A little bit. But someone's got to look after them. You'd rather let someone else take care of your guys?"

"No," I admitted. "I just...it's freaking me out."

"You're doing great. When I was your age...I wanted to get away from everything so fast. But you've just stepped right up. It's incredible."

Dad never said that kind of shit to me. He said it to Dinah and Judy but not to me—I had never really done anything remotely near incredible in my life. I still didn't think I had done anything all that great (killing vamps was just too much fun; wanting to look after the others was far too natural) but I wasn't going to correct him.

"Thanks."

"Just watch your left flank more," he said. "You always leave it open too much."

Since it was the summer, he'd be pushing for more training. I was still the king (even if I still couldn't manage to beat him; I was getting close, though).

"Please."

"You want me to show you the hard way?" he asked. I was growing, but I couldn't quite keep the smile off my face.

"I might have some free time tomorrow."

"All right then," he said. "Come inside or your mother will have to get creative about how to make you and we don't want that."

No, we definitely did not want that. I let him help me up and we headed inside.

* * *

When I woke up on the Sunday morning before the first week of September it was to find only Judy was around. My parents were out of town for work, but Dinah should have been here. "Dinah said to go to Brian's when you woke up. And to take me."

"What?" I was still half asleep. Groaning, I tried to make sense of the gibbering girl in front of me. "Slow down, Jubes."

"You're taking me to the Uleys. Now wake up, Levi. Let's go, let's go, let's go!"

I did not need her singing like that that early in the morning. I wanted to go back to sleep and possibly commit...sibling-cide? Whatever it was called, I wanted Judith to shut up. Why in the world would she want to go to the Uleys? Why would I want to go to the Uleys? Watching Brian drool over my sister was annoying as hell.

"Why do you care?"

Jubes blushed. I freaked.

"You cannot like any of the Uleys. I forbid it."

Baxter was _way_ too old for her and Artie was too young and the twins...okay that idea of that was so funny I almost thought it was okay. Almost. She cackled in my face, the changeling that was supposed to be related to me.

"Ew. Don't be gross, Levi."

"Then who do you want to see?"

"No one," she lied unconvincingly. "Oh and Dinah said we had to pick up Will on the way. So let's get to it!"

Okay, so it was a little creepy how eager my little sister was to see my cousin. Sure he doted on her, but she liked me better. Then I remembered that Will tended not to be at his house anymore.

"_Bertie?_"

Judith turned bright red, but managed a passable, "Well, I guess we can pick him up, too."

Oh hell no.

* * *

I couldn't help glaring at Bert in the review mirror as I drove the four of us to Brian's house. It made no sense that my sister liked him. We had known him our entire lives—and he took stoic to a whole new level. How could Judy like him if she couldn't get him to talk? Maybe that was it. I always thought Judy could talk for two people; maybe she wanted to prove me right.

This posed a problem. Being Marlena's little brother meant that Will wouldn't be willing to help plan his murder (hell, from the way Will had been hanging out with Bert lately, I was a little afraid Will would _help _them). Was I really supposed to threaten some fifteen year old kid by myself? It felt a little mean.

"Did we really have to go this early?" Will complained from beside me, not caring that I had to pay attention to the teens in the back seat in case _something_ went wrong.

"Dinah said so," Judy just repeated.

"Yes, but why?" he sighed. He was sleeping better lately, but it wasn't like he had been asleep. If he wanted to complain about something, how about the fact my little sister had hormones? It shouldn't be allowed.

"Does she need to give an explanation?" I asked.

"Aren't you the Alpha, not her?"

"You want to be the one to tell her that?"

The two of us amused ourselves.

"She borrowed my car yesterday," Will thought to tell me. "If she broke it, I'm not responsible for how quickly she's going to die."

Unfortunately, it made sense that she would want as many witnesses as possible if she was going to tell Will she was going to cost him money. I really hoped the car was okay—he had been pretty good about controlling his temper since he got back. It would be a shame to ruin his streak.

It turned out to be worse than a broken car.

When we drove up, the Uley boys descended on Bert and Judy. My little sister could take care of herself. And when she couldn't, I'd kill the boys. Problem solved. There was another problem, however.

"We have to stay outside," Tommy babbled. Or maybe it was Timmy.

"They don't want us in the house," the other said.

"Francy and Brian are fighting and they don't want us to hear."

Oh.

"She's back?"

"Dinah brought her in this morning," Artie explained before he pulled Bert to the backyard. "Isn't it great?"

I cursed under my breath. And that was why Dinah shouldn't have a car. Even if I was slightly impressed; I hadn't thought the end of the world would have gotten Francy home again.

"Dad went to Makah to see Mom's family," Baxter said quietly as the kids raced to the backyard. He was seventeen, now. My age (until my birthday next week). He didn't feel my age, but I knew that look in his eye too well. He'd leave his older siblings to it, babysit the others the way they wanted him to, but he was worried. "He won't be home until after lunch. They want everything solved before he gets back."

Over the babbling kids, I could hear the voices from inside. Francine was definitely back, though it was hard to hear her over Dinah and Brian. It didn't sound like they'd have anything solved by the time Sam came back at the rate they were going.

"We'll handle it," I promised Baxter. Inside, Brian half-raised his voice.

"That's out of the question. I can't believe you would even suggest something like that."

"I didn't bring you home just so you could to overreact," Dinah said.

"It's not an overreaction," Francy said quietly. "We can't afford for me to go to school, so I have to drop out. That is simply an inevitable reaction."

"You're not dropping out," Brian insisted. "After everything we've been through this year—"

"What have we been through this year, Brian?" I cringed, sorry that my pack brother had to be at the receiving end of her quiet anger.

By this time Will and I had gotten through the front door and were standing in the kitchen doorway. Even if Brian had still had his long hair, the twins would have no longer looked anything alike. He was big and beefy; Francy had always been slender, especially for a girl on the rez, more graceful than even Dinah. Though the expression on their faces was identical—they were both upset and hurting.

"Welcome home," I said.

The three of them turned to greet us and then—

Francy yelped. It wasn't a scream, just a hiccup of a sound, really. Then she put her hands over her mouth as she flushed, her eyes wide as she stared.

And everything changed.

Will said it was like going to sleep; Brian said it was like finally waking up. They were both wrong. Having the world realign around Francine Uley's deep brown eyes was suddenly being thrust to the front of a parade and knowing that you were going to do a damn good job.

I had always known she was pretty, but it was startling how little my memories had done her justice. Everything about her was perfect, from her long fingers to her slender neck, to her full lips and thick lashes. Her hair looked like velvet; I could barely resist the urge to touch it. She even had beautiful ears.

Francy hadn't wanted to leave; Brian had made her when they did the math and realized only one of them could go to school. He was the one who pushed, always the noble self-sacrificing older brother (even if it was only seven minutes) and she let him have his way. She sent back every penny she made to help him out. When she graduated she wouldn't stop, would keep the family going until they could get all the boys out of the house with no one ever being any wiser that some nights Sam didn't get off the couch.

Even growing up in a houseful of idiotic brothers Francy was gentle, oh so gentle.

"You're huge," she whispered into her hands.

Will couldn't help himself: "Bet she says that to all the guys."


	20. Chapter 19

A/N: I actually wrote another 1000 words to explain everything, but this chapter has to end where it does so that's that. More for next time! I loved the comments :D Some of you know me too well, but I'm glad I surprised some people.

* * *

Francy tore her eyes away from me (I tried not to growl) to stare at Will. It took her a moment for the shock to fade, but eventually she managed to ask her brother, "I'm sorry, but what are they doing here?"

"They came as a set."

"And unfortunately there are no returns."

Dinah and her boyfriend were not funny.

"I fail to see how this is any of their business."

"They've been helping me out," Brian said.

I said, "We just wanted to make sure the guys were okay."

"Since they only had Brian looking out for them."

Dinah just couldn't help herself, sometimes. Just like I couldn't help growling at her just then. Just because she couldn't help being a bitch didn't mean she shouldn't learn how to hold her tongue.

"You tricked me into coming back just so you could tell me all the ways I let you down to my face? That's a lot of effort, Di. If it means that much to you, go ahead."

"Waste of gas," Will sighed beside me. But he kept his voice low because Francy was right. This wasn't our business, not really. The three of them had to work this out themselves.

"Tricked you?" Brian asked.

"Thomas looked well for a boy with the flu."

"Di…" Brian sighed. My sister had the grace to look uncomfortable. Though of course Dinah defended herself. "Someone had to do something! She still doesn't know about…you know. How can she help if she doesn't know?"

Francy raised an eyebrow.

Well, if no one else was going to do it…I couldn't stand the thought of her not knowing for a second longer.

"Remember that book your mom used to read us when we were kids?" I asked her. I only had my pants on, but I didn't want to freak her out. Fortunately, Dinah and Brian moved to flank her. No one else wanted to keep her in the dark any longer, either. "Close your eyes," her brother said and she did, even as she considered my words.

"I remember."

"Remember when we laughed at Brian for thinking it could be real?" Dinah murmured.

I phased.

"Try not to scream this time," Will said. "You'll scare the kids."

Francine opened her eyes. Her eyes grew wider than ever before (her eyes were the colour of melted chocolate, the kind I couldn't help imagining licking off her) but she managed not to scream. Barely, but still. She held my eyes for a long while, sitting in the chair, shaking a little.

"Levi?"

I barked. She almost fainted.

Dinah started fanning her, which helped snap her out of it. "Stop that," Francy said. "You look ridiculous."

"You're the one hyperventilating."

"I'm not. And you're not." It occurred to Francy that no one else had even blinked. "You all knew. More than that. The three of you—" she gestured to the world, but you could tell she meant those of us who had probably a hundred pounds of muscle on her "—that's why the two of them are here. Because the three of you can…"

"We're werewolves," Brian said slowly. "I'm a werewolf, Francy. I'm so sorry I didn't tell you."

But she was too busy figuring out all the way everyone in her life had been lying to her for her entire life to care about easing Brian's guilt.

"Dad. Uncle Jacob. Uncle…all our uncles. All of them, right?"

"And my mom," Dinah added.

"My…?"

"Just my mom."

"Oh. How long have you known?"

"Since Christmas."

She didn't look hurt by that answer. Maybe she was just too shocked. Maybe it was because she was fair that way, honestly believed that people should be allowed their own secrets (I guess she hadn't figured out that we didn't really do that around here).

"I phased the first week of September," Brian explained. "That's why—"

"Why you didn't call the first couple of weeks I was gone." Finally, she understood. "And why you couldn't really work. And why...it's why you're all friends."

"Yeah," Will said. I couldn't help the feeling of triumph; it was nice of him to finally just admit it.

I phased back so I could join the conversation. Hey, it's not like I had anything to be ashamed of and Francy got even hotter when she blushed. So what if Brian was growling? If she didn't mind, I didn't care what her brother said.

"So you...turn into wolves?"

"And we can heal faster than humans and run faster than a car. When we've phased we can read each other's minds," I explained.

Brian added, "You should see it, Francy. Dad showed me when he and Mom met. She looked…you should have seen her."

"You can see each other's memories?"

"Only if we show them off," Will interrupted. "Some of us are better at keeping things to ourselves than others." Almost apologetically he added, "They know you came back for the…to see her…the family. I couldn't—not then. But…"

Francy just nodded. Then: "That's how you knew my pin number?"

He shrugged, but it was a little too late because suddenly it wasn't the monsters in the room that worried her most of all.

"So we really can't afford it," she said to her brother. "Right?"

"We'll think of something," Brian promised her.

"Brian...what else is there to do? Please, if there is another way, tell me."

She had dropped her eyes to her lap, looking meek and mild beside her beefy brother, but I don't think any of us doubted that Francine would get her way against Brian. She had always been the more determined twin and Brian was a pushover. When he couldn't answer her (there wasn't any answer to give) she continued in her soft voice.

"It makes the most sense. If you can't work properly…Seattle's expensive. If we didn't have to pay for school we could start putting money towards...all the rest of it."

"There's correspondence courses," Dinah said quietly. Her knee-jerk reaction was to just do what she wanted, but somehow Francy had always been able to get her to see when reality was in the way. "They're cheaper and they give you more time to work... you wouldn't be as far behind if you ever managed to go back. Or there's community college. It's cheaper…I don't know if it's cheap enough and you couldn't get in this fall but…"

"Thanks, Di." She and my sister shared a smile. I guess Dinah was forgiven for lying about Tommy being sick. I did not attempt to understand the two of them.

"That is not happening," Brian said.

"It's okay, Brian. I…I don't mind. It'll be good to stay with you again."

The last part sounded sincere even if the first part was rather unconvincing. She was allowed to be disappointed that she had to give up on her dreams, even if she did love her family.

Brian turned to his pack for help. If Will hadn't agreed with where the conversation was heading, Brian wouldn't have turned to me because I was helpful in this situation only because I could get Will to help. But Will was enjoying how everyone was slowly coming around to what he had been saying all year, so Brian felt he needed me.

Unfortunately, Brian wasn't an idiot.

Just my luck.

"Levi? Can I talk to you outside for a second?"

"What?"

He was already leaving the room; I was supposed to follow; I finally took my eyes off of her.

"What's wrong?" Dinah demanded.

"Wolf stuff," he said. "Come on, Will."

My cousin grumbled, but did as he was told. We ended up in the front lawn as Dinah sighed and explained we did that to her a lot. Francy just muttered, "_Werewolves?"_

The fist came out of nowhere.

"Nice," Will said.

"Ow! What the hell, Brian?"

He didn't look very sorry. "Why were you staring at my sister?"

"Because he always stares at your sister," Will said. It was only when the Brian kept glaring and I blushed that he began to reconsider. I was a little surprised. I think he figured it out last of all. "You imprinted on Fran?"

He got the words out, but not much more before he started laughing. The whole speech I was going to give to Brian about how this was none of his business and since he was sleeping with my sister behind his imprint's back he could shove off was drowned out by Will's laughter. It was hard to get into a fight when someone was hysterical beside you.

"You okay?" Brian frowned.

"No," Will gasped out between peals of laughter. "So he fucks your sister and you fuck his? We're so fucking inbred."

The ONLY reason Will didn't get hit was because Brian and I couldn't figure out which one of us should have the honor. So we did our best to ignore him. Brian said to me, "You doing okay? How's it feel?"

"Perfect."

Now that we weren't paying attention to him Will calmed down. Enough to be annoying again, at any rate. Still chuckling he said, "Guess you had a shot, after all, kid."

"Why wouldn't I have a shot?"

It was Brian who answered. It was like some kind of conspiracy. "Levi, she thinks of you as our other brother."

"She does not."

"Well…" Even Brian couldn't argue with destiny. "She did."

I turned to Will.

"Is that why you told me to get over her? Not because you thought she was…" In the interests of keeping pack harmony I decided not to go over all the names Will had thought up for Francy over the years. "You just thought I never had a chance?"

"Congratulations, Levi," was all he said. "At least she's better than Kara."

Brian flinched at the sound of my girlfriend's name; I guess he had forgotten about her until now.

"Shut up, Will."

"That's going to be tough," Brian said to me. "Do you—?"

"Shut up, Brian."

"Levi, we can't just leave the girls in there forever. We have to go in eventually. You kind of need to figure out what you're going to say to my sister and fast."

"I know what I'm going to say to your sister. I knew the second I imprinted on her."

"Oh. Okay." Brian bit his lip, then offered me his hand. "It could be worse, I guess. And this way she might come home without Dinah technically having to kidnap her."

Will had been about to have two kids and a fucking dog. There was no might about it. Imprinting was great for keeping people around. I didn't want Francy to stay because she felt she had to, but I was pretty sure we finally had a guarantee that she wouldn't just take off, never to be heard from again.

Not that I got to say any of that to Brian because the guy ended up the ground before I could blink.

Will looked just as surprised as we did about what he had just done.

"What the hell?" Brian asked as he rubbed his jaw.

"That's why I hate you and Sam. As the one here with experience with women who go loony toons locked in this town, I'm guess I have to point out that it doesn't tend to work out that well." Since that could be mistaken for sympathetic, he added, "I mean, since I'm a miserable human being I'm going to enjoy the way she's fucked, but as her brother you might want to rethink that."

"I'm not that bad," I muttered as I helped Brian off the ground. While Brian just wanted her to visit, Will wasn't in the habit of giving the Uleys the benefit of the doubt. "We're not making her stay, Will. We're going to figure out a way for her to leave...and then ask her to see us sometimes."

"They can't afford for her to go."

"There's nothing we can do for my imprint?"

Will growled and the only reason he didn't hit me was because his hand still hurt. Instead, he started pacing. By now Brian knew to leave the two of us to it. He waited awhile before he said to me, "That was pretty low."

Hey, if I couldn't put their rah-rah-imprinting spirit to good use, what good was it? It's not like I had mentioned Marley directly.

"He's just pissed I was so obvious about it."

"We do have to go inside eventually."

"Give him a minute."

It took him longer than that, but not too long. For all that he liked rubbing the hopelessness of the situation in Brian's face, Will had spent a lot of time thinking over the options before now.

"Two ways," he snapped. "You're not going to like the first and I hate the second."

"Let's start with the one you like."

"I go back to work—"

"No," Brian said firmly. "I'd rather my sister drop out."

"You think you're too good— "

"You're an idiot, Will. I'm not letting you risk your neck for us."

Will blinked, then shrugged as if he didn't care. "You'd be helping, too."

"We are not starting our own drug cartel."

"If we didn't veto this, Dinah would," I interrupted. "It's not happening. What's the second one?"

"We pool everything and no one spends a cent they don't need. Not a penny without my express permission." He didn't sound excited, or power-mad, just resigned. "No one, including you and Dinah, spends anything they don't have to. Baxter and Artie have to get jobs, no arguing about them being too young, no nothing. They work. And Sam works. Sam works at least thirty hours a week—babysitting the twins so someone else can work can count, but thirty hours _minimum_—or he fends for himself."

"What if he relapses?" Brian said.

There was a moment when Will almost pointed out that if Sam relapsed, chances were he'd die and save them money. But he bit his tongue (I may have kicked him) and just said, "As long as he works thirty hours a week."

"And that'll be enough?" I ask.

"Depends on what you'll do for your imprint," he said to me. "You know that money your parents have saved up so you can go to school?"

"She can have it," I agreed.

"Levi—"

"It's not like I'm going to use it," I told Brian. Chances were I probably wouldn't have gone off to school, anyway. Maybe when my pack was a little more stable I'd take some courses at some local college or something. But I had to stay around La Push and I was going to help Francy as best as I could. "Brian, we aren't arguing about this. Take it."

Brian thanked me quietly; he shouldn't have bothered. I would have done anything for her, after all. Then he turned to Will. "You said _we_ pool it all."

It took Will a second to explain (but if he was shaking a bit, no one said anything). "It's not like I have a ring or anything to buy, anymore. I—unlike the rest of you idiots, I can save money. And if we take that and what Levi has…it'll be a solid place to start, at least.""

"You don't have to—"

"She's pack. And you're paying me interest." Will rolled his eyes, but now that it was out of his system he answered seriously enough. "Worrying about your family might manage to distract me for half a second. I could—I could use the distraction."

"This doesn't sound as impossible as you always said it was."

"Because you're an idiot, Brian. Hell, getting your father to accept help might screw this whole thing before it even starts. If it was easy, our parents would have done it."

"Sam'll take it from us," I said.

He would have no choice. I think my father would be disappointed about that, but unlike him Sam wasn't my problem. In my world, Sam was the bystander. Brian and Francy were my pack; if they agreed to let me help, then Sam didn't really matter. Since I was going to have to go inside and explain everything to Francy it occurred to me how little sense this would make to a human. My father's hands were tied and mine weren't over the same thing even though he was so much older. Maybe she would understand that when you had a family to support, you sometimes weren't able to look after everyone else around you, no matter how much you might want to.

Will snorted. "A lot of it is his money, anyway. Which might make it harder. He knows I didn't make it selling girl guide cookies."

"Exactly how much money is coming from you?" Brian thought to ask.

The number left us gaping, a little.

"Lena likes a certain standard of living," he snapped. "And I've been saving since I was twelve."

"I take it back," Brian murmured. "Let's sell drugs."

Since Will looked a little too eager, I announced it was time to go inside and explain to the girls what we wanted to do.

When we got back into the room, I took a minute to enjoy the way her eyes sparkled, the faint blush on her cheek, the curve of her cheek. Then I explained what was going to happen.

* * *

Kim was not happy to see me. News spread quickly on the rez. That's what you got for imprinting in a house full of Uleys.

"What do you want?" she asked me. I had always considered Kim easy to forget. I felt a little ashamed now. She wasn't going to let me in.

"I need to talk to Kara. I...there's something I need to tell her."

Instead of looking at me, Kim stared at the darkening sky. I had come when I could, but not soon enough. The sigh seemed to come from someone far too big to be little dumpy Kim.

"I guess she should hear it from you." The frown didn't go away. "Please..."

Thankfully, she turned away before she could continue, leaving me standing on the porch, wishing I had worn a shirt without holes in it and maybe shoes. That might have been good. I shoved my hands in my pocket and waited.

Kara finally appeared with red eyes and wearing one of those stupid sweaters. It was August for crying out loud. I wanted to hug her, but she didn't look like she could take that.

"What...what do you want?"

"I need to talk to you. There's something I need to tell you."

"I—" She almost started crying right then. When I tried to take her arm, she jerked away, so I had to step back. "I already heard, okay? You and Francine, huh?"

"I imprinted on Francy," I confirmed. "But, uh, that's not really the important part."

"There's more?"

"Could you just stop crying, please? It's kind of hard to talk over..."

That was apparently the wrong thing to say because it just set her off. At least this time she let me hold her.

"Sorry," she muttered, trying to pull away. I really didn't feel like letting her.

Instead, I took a deep breath and tried to make myself spill. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Easier, too, in a way.

"I kind of came here to tell you I, uh, love you."

She blinked.

"Excuse me?"

Did she really want me to repeat it? It should have been easier to say, but it wasn't.

Still, I got it out.

That's when Kara started frowning. "But—but you—you and Francine, right?"

"I imprinted on her. And I'm in love with you. So...I mean, imprinting might mean she'll go out with me, but since I kind of already have a girlfriend, I was thinking she could just go on being my older sister's kind of really hot friend."

"You're serious?"

Was she stalling? I think she was stalling just so she didn't have to respond. Here I was pouring my heart out and she was fucking stalling.

"I'm going to guess that scowl means you were serious."

But there was something about her voice—it wasn't hysterical anymore. In fact, I was pretty sure she relaxed against me. And then I was sure I saw a smile on her face.

"So, you, uh, love me?"

"That would be the idea."

I narrowed my eyes, but she wasn't scared. Kara had no common sense. She just brushed my lips with hers.

Then she said something which was no body's fucking business but mine.

We stayed outside for a while, so I could explain everything. Maybe storytelling would have gone faster if I could stop kissing her, but we had time.

With her wrapped so tightly in my arms there was one more thing I had to admit:

"I kind of love this sweater."

She just grinned.

"I know."


	21. Chapter 20

Of course, it hadn't been _quite_ as simple as I told Kara.

The reason it took me so long to get to her house was that life was never as simple as I wanted it to be, especially when it came to my pack. First, we had to listen to Dinah complain about how high-handed we were about everything, never bothering to consult with anyone. Second, we had to listen to Dinah protest when Francy tried to turn down our offer of help. Then we had to convince my imprint to accept it.

"Life's kind of a communal effort for us," I explained.

That didn't seem to help her. In fact, the more I spoke the more flustered she seemed to get. I think having me in charge was throwing her. It's not like I had been five when she left. I had been days away from turning seventeen and big for my age (probably bigger than Will was right now, actually). She shouldn't be _that_ surprised I could get people to listen to me.

"Brian, we can't just take things from other people."

"They aren't other people. They're pack."

"But all that? Brian, we _can't_. It's not—"

"Oh, shut up," Will said. "Drop the self-righteousness, take the damn money and go to school like we all know you want to do."

"You're really going to pay for me to go to school, William?"

Her laughter faded when he just stared her down; she looked from him to me to Brian to Dinah and when none of us laughed, she stared like we had all grown second heads. "So this wolf thing is like a cult?"

Dinah didn't even hesitate. "Oh, so, so much."

"We just want to help you," I said. "That's what we do. We help people."

I wanted it to be true more than I ever wanted anything in my life. I didn't want the whole point of having fur to be about trying to out-run my mother. I wanted it to be about making a real difference. Even if it was small (like Will not actively trying to kill himself or Sam trying to self-destruct a little slower than he used to).

"Why help me now? I'm just that special?"

"Well, yeah."

She blushed as I looked at her; Dinah was frowning. I needed dumber friends.

"You cannot be serious. Levi…she was my friend first."

"I already hit him if it makes you feel better, darling."

"A little bit."

"You hit Levi?" Right. She didn't know that life equalled violence all of a sudden. "I don't know why I'm finding that freakier than the mindreading, but I think I just hit my weirdness quota for the day. Can we take a break?"

"He needs to explain about imprinting first," Dinah snapped at me. "She's not getting stalked without warning."

"We don't stalk," Brian murmured.

"You got a job in Makah to make stalking easier. You stalk. It's less creepy than it sounds, but it's still stalking, Brian. You better not be dumping Kara, you jackass. She just barely got over being scarred for life by your idiot friend."

"Sorry my emotional trauma was inconvenient for her," Will said as he flipped Dinah off.

I laid out imprinting before Francy could get more confused. How it was a normal part of the werewolf experience, where we found someone that would be the centre of our universe. A grounding influence, if you would. I had to reveal the way most of the adults around us were imprints, but I made sure to mention that Dad and Nessie lived on separate continents most of the year and they were doing fine. Wolves just needed their imprints to be happy.

And we had all imprinted.

"Is that why you and Di are together again? Because of this imprinting thing?" she asked her brother.

"Uh, actually, I imprinted on Ginger."

I had imprinted on her and I still thought she looked funny just then, with her mouth half-open and the repeated blinking.

"The center of your universe is Artie's ex-girlfriend? His twelve year old ex-girlfriend? So…werewolves approve of hebephilia?"

"It's not like that," Dinah quickly explained. "Imprinting isn't a sexual thing."

Will couldn`t help it: "Sure, it was the best thing that ever happened to my sex life but—"

"You _still_ can't stop bragging?" Dinah snapped. "Really, Will? What the—"

"Could we get back to telling me how my brother isn't a pervert? Please, Di? The fight will hold. Meanwhile…freaking out here."

"I couldn't hurt her," Brian promised. "Imprinting means I…even if I wanted to, which I never will, I couldn't hurt her. She means too much to me. It just means that until she's old enough I'm going to see her as a little sister that I have to protect and take care of and…other stuff. Not that way."

"What do mean," Dinah asked, "_Until she's old enough_?"

Brian looked like he had just found out he had been locked in a cage with a lion—because he sort of had. My sister did not look happy (and I have to say, I wasn't particularly happy at that moment, either).

"Darling—"

"No. You don't get to say that while you're waiting _until she's old enough_. You said—I thought you were in love with me."

"I am."

Francy gave me an apologetic smile, Will went to find something to eat and I started worrying about when I'd have to jump in to protect Brian.

"So where is this coming from?"

"It's—I was just explaining that it's not like that with Ginger now."

I groaned out loud; Brian was just walking into them now.

"It's not going to be like that _ever_. Because you're with me."

The way she snarled the last bit would have ordinarily made me laugh; she should at least make it sound like he had a choice about it. I didn't laugh.

"I know. I—today is apparently foot in mouth day for me. Will already hit me for it."

"Good."

My imprint looked exasperated with my cousin, who shrugged unapologetically. I think it was then that I realized how much my life was going to suck for the rest of eternity, trying to get these four people to all get along at once. Hell, it had taken me a year to get Brian and Will to wherever they were now. I did not want to add even more people to the mix. Too bad it looked like I didn't have a choice about that.

"I didn't mean anything by it, Di. It's just habit to talk about it like that. From listening to all the adults."

"Sometimes we imprint when they're even younger than Ginger is. My dad's imprint was a baby and Quil imprinted on Claire when she was two," I explained to Francy as Brian continued begging Dinah to forgive him.

"And mostly waited until she was legal to fuck her," Will said.

Francy was starting to look a little sick, which is sort of how I looked when I glanced over to see that Brian had managed to talk Dinah down and was busy making it up to her.

"We're still here," I snapped.

"Sorry," Brian muttered. Dinah didn't look sorry at all (though she didn't look happy, either; I almost told him to kiss her again).

I think Francy realized we could use a distraction.

"So if Brian imprinted on Ginger and William…Levi, who did you imprint on?" She knew. It sort of hurt my pride how unenthused she looked about it. The next words out of her mouth were, "I have a boyfriend. As flattered as I am, Levi, I have a boyfriend."

"A man friend," Dinah muttered. "A dirty old man friend."

"We just finished saying it wasn't like that," I reminded her. "I just want to help you. That's all. I have a girlfriend myself."

"Oh. Sorry, I forgot. Kara, right? How is she?"

"She's probably not going to be great, actually. But I'll think of something."

"Yes, well, I'm sure she knows how important she is to you so this whole centre of universe thing won't...I'm sure she'll understand. Right?"

"Seriously?" Will sighed. "You're really going to keep Kara? _Levi..."_

"Are you five?" Dinah asked. "Stop whining."

"I really don't want to listen to him go on about _both_ of them."

"How did you manage to get through this morning without getting hit?" I wondered.

"The trick is to be an asshole all the time, so it would be a waste of everyone's time to hit me when I piss them off."

I laughed and for the first time all morning, I felt like I used to. Without all the worrying about everything and everyone and how the hell I was going to explain this all to Kara… I couldn't even enjoy that because I could hear their car coming down the road.

"Sam's coming."

Even if I hadn't been attuned to her every move, I think I would have noticed how pale Francy turned just then.

"Oh."

Dinah and Brian were doing weird things with their eyebrows that I think was their way of asking each other if she was okay. Eventually, Brian went out to buy his sister some time to prepare while my sister sat down on the couch and wrapped an arm around her friend's waist.

"You don't have to see him if you don't want."

"He's my father. I have to see him. I just…"

"I'm going to take the kids for ice cream. Or something," Will blurted out. Yeah, this wasn't really his thing. "I'll find out how the whole teary reunion went later. See you on patrol."

"Thought we were all on a budget?" I called as he hurried out the back.

"That's why we're going to your house."

I should have seen that coming.

But I had a freaked out imprint to deal with, so I left the rest of them to Will. Sam and Brian were on the front porch, so I could confidently report, "He sounds happy that you're here. Nervous, but glad."

It snapped her out of the daze she had fallen into. For a second she just stared at me, like I was a puzzle on display and she couldn't quite believe the pieces had come together like that.

"So imprinting means I feel better with you here even though…?"

"It makes absolutely no sense?" I offered. "Yeah."

Sense was overrated.

That was the first rule of being a werewolf.

* * *

Sam kicked us out.

We probably should have seen that coming, actually. Even Dinah didn't fight him on it (she even dragged Brian and I out of earshot). We talked jobs the kids could work (Dinah laughed and reminded me I wasn't even a year old than Baxter so I could stop acting so superior) and what we wanted for dinner.

When they weren't confused about each other, Brian and Dinah were pretty awesome.

Eventually, Sam came and got us. Then we all had to sit down and explain everything for him. As predicted, Sam was…less than enthused about taking our help. But his daughter's wishes swayed him in the end (even before I pointed out that some of what Will was giving him was probably his money in the first place). He would let us help him.

Once that was taken care of there was the small matter of explaining to him that, yes, by the way, I had imprinted on his only daughter.

You would think reuniting with his daughter would put him in a good mood. Nope. Sam decided to turn evil, instead.

He made me call my parents.

_Conference call _my parents, as if life wasn't already awkward enough for everyone.

Why did they pick this weekend to be out of town?

At least he let Dinah and the twins leave to find the others. I was not going to have this conversation while everyone could hear.

"Is everything all right?" my mother demanded as soon as my parents, Sam and I were all settled around the phone. Of course she was freaking out. She knew I wouldn't call unless someone was bleeding and even then I would have waited to see if they looked like they were going to heal up first.

"Dinah kidnapped Francy and brought her home, but she's apparently okay with that. Francy and Brian seemed to have agreed to pretend everything is fine and then she did the same with Sam. I think. I also imprinted on her."

That seemed like everything of importance. The line went silent for a second as my parents digested the news. This sucked; Sam should have just let me wait until they came home. I needed to be able to see them. The silence could mean anything.

"Well, Sam," my father said, "I think we owe Seth some money."

"You were betting on my imprint?"

Sam looked down at his hands, but my father answered cheerfully, "Of course. I thought you'd imprint on one of the hybrids. And Sam was delusional, thinking no one would imprint on his daughter."

"At least it wasn't Will," Mom said to Sam.

Hey, it worked on drunk girls. Maybe it would work on Sam, getting him to see me as the less-likely-to-get-thrown-in-jail alternative. Maybe not.

"That would have been better." And I was so telling Will and he was so never going to let Sam forget he had said that. "At least he didn't try to abandon his imprint minutes later."

"Actually, Will offered to dump Marley if I didn't..." Not like Will would have actually gone through with it, though I had appreciated the offer, but I shut up just then because Sam did a pretty good growl as a human. Apparently, he disapproved of me. Who would have thought?

"Sam, I'm sure Levi made sure Francy was okay with it first," Dad said. Oops. Her brother said she didn't want to; that was close enough.

"You're not surprised." Sam sighed. "Why am I not surprised you're not surprised?"

"You can't be that impossible unless it's genetic," Mom said. "Levi, have you gone to talk to Kara yet?"

"I'm going over as soon as this torture is over."

"Don't try and be smart. You _did _talk to Francy, right?"

"Yeah. She has a boyfriend."

"She what?" Oops again. Not that it was Sam's business.

"She could have just been saying that to save face. I don't think anyone's ever turned her down in her life." I don't think Sam bought that; my imprint was going to kill me. Probably not the best way to start off being the most important people in each other's lives thing we'd have going on for the rest of forever.

"You did give it some thought, right, Levi?" Mom asked. "Because she would be good for you…" I stared at the phone, sure I must have heard my mother wrong. It was kind of hard to tell because my father was laughing so loudly. "Oh, shut up, Jake. She would be! Not that Kara isn't good for you, Levi, I just think someone a little older might be…"

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear you say that," I decided.

"As long as you're happy I don't care how old she is," my mother promised. Then she realized that we weren't really allowed to say that, what with all the potential pedos around us. "As long as she's sixteen."

"Even then," Dad said, "If you could stop sneaking around it would make my life easier. Kim disapproves."

"_We _disapprove," Mom stressed. My dad didn't; hell, Sam didn't. Oh, when it came to his daughter he was furious that I wouldn't devote every second of every day to her every whim, but he didn't care what I did with Kara as long as I didn't get caught.

I wondered what the pack would have been like without my mother. It would have been like my pack without Brian—probably not the best idea.

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered. "Keep the belt on. I get it, I get it. Can I go now? I still haven't gotten to see her and I'm sure Judy's blabbed to the whole rez by now."

I shouldn't have let Will take the kids, but it hadn't occurred to me what a bad idea that was until my grandparents had called me at the Uleys. Grandpa Billy had laughed and congratulated me and wished me good luck in making up my mind. Grandma Sue called me and told me if I hurt either one of the girls she'd shoot me. I'm not sure she was joking (the next part definitely wasn't a joke—she said I sure as hell wasn't allowed anywhere near the girls when I was upset, no matter how confused I got. That I promised her as fast as I could).

Maybe Judy had taken out a sky-writing plane or maybe the Uley boys were just louder than bullhorns. Either way, I'm sure Kara knew by now. I had to get out of here.

"Good luck," Mom said. "Be patient. It won't be easy for her."

"It took me years with your mother," Dad said. "But it was worth it."

And suddenly I was glad they were far, far away and I couldn't see their faces. Sam was too, if the way he hastily hung up the phone before the sound of my parents macking got even more obvious.

"Well, then. They know."

"They know. They think I'm right," I said smugly as I stood up to leave.

"They think it's your mistake to make," Sam corrected. He thought I was going to regret this.

In the interest of not hitting him (hitting your imprint's father was bad form) I just showed myself out.

* * *

After the day I had (and the very enjoyable evening of proving to Kara just how serious I was about sticking with her), I just wanted to relax with my pack by the cliffs and not think about anything, anymore. Brian and Will were less obliging.

"You're really going to give Fran up for Kara?"

It was Will who asked. Brian wouldn't dare. Having Francy and his father on opposite sides of the-being-with-me issue meant that he wasn't sure what side to pick. And having Dinah in his life meant he wasn't allowed to be conflicted about it. Will, on the other hand, had obviously picked the side that would annoy me most.

"Why does everyone seem to think she's so much better?"

"They have eyes."

"She's so much hotter, you take her then."

Will laughed, but it was the sort of way he laughed back when…I hated that laugh.

"You know, I can't even tell, anymore. I mean, I know she's hot. I remember that. Hell, I spent years of my life listening to you rhapsodize about it so I couldn't forget if I wanted to. But I look at her now and…she looks the same as Kara. They all just look…like nothing."

But he put Marlena away before Brian and I could say anything.

"It's a job, Levi. Being your imprint is a job and Fran's going to be better at it. That's just a fact. Kara couldn't handle it. I mean, even Fran can't get Dinah and me to get along, but she can get the barbarian horde that is her brothers to behave, so she's not completely useless. Meanwhile, Kara can't actually speak while I'm around."

"She thought you were going to kill me."

"I've done worse. Kara does not get points for getting me shipped to Canada, either. Not how I want my Alpha's girl to handle things. Fran's a coward, but she get's things done."

"I'm not saying she's not going to be my imprint." For Francy's sake, I hope she didn't view it in the same way Will did. Nessie was barely involved with us. Francy didn't have to help out unless she wanted to (she'd want to—I didn't have to be have imprinted to know that. I had grown up with her, stalked her, been so freaking in love with her…she'd see it as a job she had to do. And Will was right—she'd be better at it than just about anyone we knew, used to looking after people). "I'm just going to be with Kara at the same time."

"You think you can handle them both?"

"Yeah, actually."

"I barely remembered you were alive and you were in my head. Kara doesn't stand a chance."

"What do you think?" I asked Brian.

He took a long time in answering. He'd been happy this summer, with my sister, but there was no denying he still cared about Ginger way too much to be healthy.

"I love Dinah. And Ginger. I want to be with Dinah. But..."

"But?"

"I don't know what the but is, just that it exists. It's driving me nuts, feeling like there's a but that I'm missing. But if you don't feel that way…I don't know, Levi. It might help that you're the Alpha."

"You do know that if you break my sister's heart there's going to be a hunting accident around here, right?"

"Now he listens to me." Will sighed.

"I won't hurt her. I just…I don't know what will happen. I _can't _know until it happens. If it makes you feel better, I'm Team Kara. Because if you could do it…"

Then maybe he could, too.

There was nothing to do. I was in love with Kara (not that I was telling my pack that part) and I had imprinted on Francy. Just because Will was too lazy to deal with both of them didn't mean they couldn't co-exist in my life. Just because Brian was too worried about what he would do didn't mean I couldn't do it. It was a good thing Dinah was on my side (and Judy would be too, because she was always on my side).

"The two of you are the most annoying, depressing people on the planet. Why did I leave my very willing girlfriend for you?"

Will reminded me, "Because her mother was home."

Oh yeah.

Stupid Kim.

* * *

We dropped Will off and then I walked Brian home. His sister was sitting on their car, leaning against the windshield, staring at the sky.

"Everyone's sleeping," she warned Brian. She smiled, teasing him. "You let them stay up far too late."

Her brother didn't seem to find it funny. "What time should I get them to bed, then?"

The silent criticism washed over her. "Be careful not to wake them up on your way in."

She went back to looking at the sky while Brian looked at her helplessly. She had turned away so he headed in. I headed over. I hadn't actually gotten to be alone with her yet and, well, you couldn't blame a guy for wanting to be alone with her.

"Star-gazing?"

"Something like that." She patted the space beside her, but I couldn't. I'd crush the car. She laughed when I explained. "Suit yourself."

"What are you doing out here?"

"Just thinking. Too much information, today. Too much…too much, today. At least the wolf stuff helps make everything else…I'd rather it had just fixed everything, instead of just explaining it, but I'll take what I can get."

"How are you dealing with it?"

"It would be better if you stopped looking so old, Levi. It's kind of really creepy."

"Oh, shut up."

"Are you allowed to tell me to shut up, imprint?"

"You're the imprint."

"Please. Dinah explained it much better than you did and, I'm sorry, Levi, but you get to be the bitch."

"Is that how it's going to work?" I asked with a laugh. I'd like to see someone try to out-stubborn me. I got it from both my parents, thank you very much. I hung out with Will, I survived being Dinah's little brother, I could stare down Sam. Francy could try. It would be cute, but it wouldn't work. The only people on the planet I couldn't resist were Jubes and Kara and that's because one was evil and the other was mine.

The smile faded from her face. "How does this work?"

"I have no fucking clue. Don't tell anyone, but I'm making it up as a go."

When her laughter faded, though, she just looked sad.

"You seem to be doing a better job than I did." She bit her lip then asked, "The two of us…we could have what Lena had, right?"

"Will annoying us all the time? Yeah, sorry about that, but we're kind of stuck with him at this point."

My imprint decided that she was just going to ignore me when I was being purposely dumb. "She would have married Ray, you know, and been perfectly happy. But...even over the phone I could tell it was different with William. She was...glowing or something. I don't think I've ever been that happy in my life and she was always like that all the time after...that's what we could have."

"Probably. With less gifts; I hate shopping."

Francy laughed and wrapped her arms around her legs. Leaning her head on her knees, she studied me in faint light of the porch. It was kind of disconcerting.

"You have a boyfriend."

"Di hates him."

"So?"

"I could never get serious with a guy she hated."

"That's not going to leave you with a lot of options."

She laughed again. "I like this. You're funnier than I remember. And bigger, but…it's reassuring. Just having you here is reassuring."

"And I write fifty percent less bad poetry than I used to."

"It was sweet." She sounded like she meant it, even though if she had thought that at the time things probably would have turned out a lot differently. "You were always a sweet kid."

"My parents would disagree with you."

"I might be stretching the truth a little."

"Your imprint thanks you for your lies."

"See? I knew you'd learn fast." Again the smile faded quickly. I didn't know what I'd have to do to keep it there, but I wanted to try. "We could have what my parents had."

"Yeah."

She pushed her hair behind her ear. Her fingers lingered along the smooth skin of her cheek. "Do you believe in fairy tales?"

"I don't know." But I couldn't not answer her. "Those dumb princess movies Judy makes me watch all the time? I hate them, but, sure. I guess. It's got to happen to someone, right?"

"You should read some. Real ones. I think you'd like them more than you'd think. Dancing until your heart explodes and thorns tearing at eyes and horrible things like that."

"Awesome."

She laughed again, slipping off the car as she did so. Before she went in, she said, "Dinah's not going to drive me back until the afternoon, so I have some time to kill in the morning. I'd like to see Kara, if you don't mind. I haven't talked to her since I left and it would be good to catch up with her and Kim."

"Sure?"

"Only if it's okay with you."

"It's fine with me. Just...she's a little shy around strangers."

"Obviously, only if it's okay with her, too. And I won't stay long if it makes her uncomfortable."

"Okay."

And then she was gone.

Honestly? I was kind of glad. Even if I hadn't had a girlfriend, I don't think a few good make-out sessions would help Francy any. But I could be her friend. I would be the best damn friend she had ever had and then maybe she wouldn't hate coming back so much.


	22. Chapter 21

After the day I had yesterday, I almost felt the need for adult supervision. So of course my parents weren't getting back the next week. It's not like I was nervous about my soul mate meeting my girlfriend. I ran the early morning patrol so that Brian could spend more time with his sister.

I picked up the smell of half-vampire in the forest.

I did what any relative would do (well, what any of _my_ relatives would do); I headed over to visit.

By the time I got there the house was silent (Seth had the best ears out of all of us, so I was sure he heard me coming), but I showed myself in anyway. They were sitting on the couch like last time, though this time they had cartons of Chinese food on their laps as she lounged on the couch, her feet tucked under his leg.

She had such great legs.

"Hey, kid," Seth said. "Good timing. Sit down."

Curious, I did what I was told. He didn't seem upset; she did, a little, but he was the one she was watching with pursed lips, not me, so I figure I was good.

"Hope I'm not interrupting."

They ignored me. Instead, she muttered, "Jacob's not going to be pleased."

My uncle smiled as she rolled her eyes. Then he stood up and offered to get me something. I asked for a beer (she looked disapproving) so then I asked for a coke and she asked for water and he wandered into the kitchen.

"I have an aunt who can see the future."

She was talking to me.

"Alice," Seth said. Like I cared what her name was. I was still stuck on the seeing the future part.

"Seriously?"

"Yes," she said. "There's a number of nomads travelling through British Columbia. They have an anniversary to celebrate together, which they're going to do by attacking a small town."

"Is this for real?"

I took the coke, but my head was reeling. My uncle handed her the water and then sat on the armrest behind her.

"Alice is usually right."

"Dad's out of town."

"We know." She sighed. It finally hit me.

"Hey, with Dad and Mom gone it's technically your pack," I reminded my uncle. "You want to do something about this, it's easy. We'll do it. I can already tell you Will and Brian are in. All the way."

"I know," he said slowly.

Technically was the key word. Seth wasn't around for half the year. He couldn't ask them to do this.

Nessie sighed again.

There were labels all over her clothes and a suitcase that might have cost more than our car in the front hall. The entire house was huge, but I think I understood why you would want to go off and spend your free time in the middle of nowhere helping to rebuild what someone had tried to break beyond repair. Duh. My parents had only been showing me my whole life.

I got it.

She had everything, so she gave back. My parents were indestructible, so they protected those who weren't.

Sometimes they screwed up. Hell, lots of times they screwed up. People got killed. People got left behind. People fell apart. They still kept going, still tried to keep an eye on everything. What was the point of superstrength if you couldn't use it to help?

It was all really simple.

So I grinned at Uncle Seth.

"If we can save those people, then we need to do this. So, are you in or am I going to have to do this myself?"

"I'm in."

"Jacob is really not going to like this." She sighed yet again.

"How many are there?" I asked. With Embry and Sam out, that left just three of the old timers, if they even wanted to help, plus the three of us.

"Four."

* * *

_Six on four is nothing_.

I knew I could count on Will.

The rest of the pack wasn't completely convinced, but they were running with us, following along when I asked. Brian didn't like anything that might leave one on one odds, but he was on my left. Seth and Quil and Paul were going to fight together, try to take two out. They had years of practice working together.

I was so pumped.

We could do this.

They used to do this a lot more; I could read it in all the old timer's thoughts. But then they had wives and kids and usually Alice saw things on the other side of the country and how were they supposed to get out there and raise families at the same time?

They missed going on the offensive.

I set the pace, fast but not too fast. I didn't want the guys exhausted by the time we got there. We didn't have a lot of time, Nessie said, but we did have until it got dark. She couldn't tell me much more than that. The second we decided to go after the vamps (the second she let me know what was going on), her aunt couldn't see what was happening.

So we were flying blind. That's why we had supped-up senses. We'd manage.

* * *

_We go in fast and hard._

_That's what she said._

So that's where Will got it from. No wonder my father hated his brother-in-law. We about to head into battle—a little originality couldn't hurt.

From Seth's mind I could hear how close we were getting. The vamps would hear us soon. They probably wouldn't know what was coming for them, but they would try to pick up the pace. I wasn't sure how close they were to the town, but I didn't want to take any chances, so I sent Paul and Quil to head them off.

Part of me wanted to be the first into the fight. _Every_ instinct I had, actually. But just because I looked like an animal didn't mean I had to act like one. Seth and Will would come at them from one side, distract them, and Brian and I would come in from the other when they weren't looking.

Timing was important, of course. I wasn't going to let my bait get beaten up.

Brian had the scent now and we all let it fill our minds, something deeply repugnant. It was a little tricky to anticipate where the vamps were, but we were the experts.

_Don't let them get your arms around you. Attack from the side._

The words were still burned into my brain.

We crossed I don't know many miles in a split second and then they were there. I couldn't get over how unnatural they looked, with their pale skin and bright red eyes—their expression was inhuman, a bad imitation of the life that sparked in actual people.

It wasn't going to be a problem ripping them apart piece by piece.

I took the one on the left, let Seth have the one on the right, gave Brian and Will the one in the middle, Quil and Paul the one in the back. In the back of my mind, I could hear Brian co-ordinating, Will listening, but I tuned them out.

Of course they'd do what I'd told them to do.

I thought about the vampire in front of me, Judy's size, with big curly blonde hair. Not the most manly of kills, but just because she looked like a cherub didn't mean she wasn't dangerous. Plus, it was safer for me to take the smaller wolf since I was by myself for this.

I got her in the shoulder before she knew that I was coming for her, my teeth digging into her flesh, tearing at the joint faster than anything, before she should get her teeth in me. Once her arm was off it was easy going. Just concentrate on moving faster, watch for the openings. She stayed close to the ground, trying to use my size against me, but she was a little disoriented from having her arm twitching on the ground beside her.

When she wobbled, I pounced.

She was tougher than I had imagined vampires would be. I knew if I had been human, I would have stood no chance. As it was, I was panting by the time she in pieces at my feet. Then I turned to help the guys, who were chasing a limping armless creature through the forest. I had just started to run when Brian gave the command and Will took out the son of a bitch.

_Nice,_ I said. I was already looking around. Quil was toying with the vamp now, the one-legged creature struggling just to stay standing. _Finish it,_ I ordered. He did.

Seth came through the clearing with a pair of legs in his mouth. I sent Brian and Paul to do a sweep, to make sure the four we had killed were all the vampires in the area.

_Alice is pretty accurate_, Seth promised, though he didn't disapprove. He was just sticking up for his vamp buddy. I didn't get that, but then, I didn't have to.

_What happened to you leg? _I asked Brian.

_Nothing that won't heal up._

_Dinah's going to be pissed you let him get hurt._

_Jacob's going to be pissed we let the three of you sneak into Canada,_ Quil sighed.

Will and I phased back, so we could build a fire to burn the still twitching limbs.

"Your dad won't care," Will said.

"He'll care. He just won't be mad."

I was a tiny bit nervous, but at the same time, I wasn't. I would do what I did again in a heartbeat.

I thought my father would understand.

My mother might kill me for taking off when I was supposed to be watching over Judy, but that was another problem entirely.

* * *

Dinah hadn't liked waiting around doing nothing, so she had invited the whole damn neighbourhood over. Not that she explained herself, too busy sticking her tongue down Brian's throat the second we got back. She just waved me and Will into the house. Behind us, I could hear her scolding him for not looking perfect. Then I could hear her admiring how sweaty he was…

"My ears," I sighed.

So I listened to the sounds coming from the backyard instead.

There was food laid out on the table, so Will stayed in the kitchen while I headed out back. I couldn't help laughing at the sight that greeted me. Francy was lying on the ground as three boys danced around her. I think Timmy and Tommy were playing witch doctor. It worked. The corpse came back alive—and gave chase. I guess Timmy had forgotten zombies liked eating annoying kids.

I wondered where the rest of her brothers and my sister had gotten off to for a second (I felt old for a second, thinking about little Artie starting high school this fall—yikes), but I could hear them off in the distance, so I wasn't worried. Besides, Francy was gorgeous, as she pretended to eat Benji's brain.

"You better be naming those future kids you're imagining after me," Will said as he came up beside me, munching on a carrot.

"I forgot she babysat your brother." The way Emily had taken in the rest of us whenever our mothers were busy with work—she never complained even though Paul never told her when he was going to bail. I had a hunch that Francy hadn't said anything, either, when no one came to pick up Benji last year (they all worked and all three couldn't communicate between them to save their lives; it's why Will and Paul had been fine with being in a pack together because whatever was wrong between them, they could better watch over Benjamin that way). I bet Francy just took the kid home with her and told him that had been the plan all along.

"I didn't."

The twins were trying to rescue their lost companion, but the zombie-woman was making a valiant effort to keep her prey.

Will continued, "It was mostly the twins. They didn't even think about not bringing him with them if they saw no one was coming. She just...she made it sound like that's what I had planned. Kid always bought it. For a Uley, she's a good liar."

"So that's why you took care of Sam?"

"Please. She took care of Sam. And when she left, Brian tried to take care of Sam, even though he was never as good with kids. I just occasionally brought Sam home at four in the morning." A scowl came over his face. "And practically paid him to take some of that shit off me. Fuck, I let him off so easy. Stupid pack mentality."

"And here I was thinking you just did it for me."

"You were probably the reason I was as nice to her as I was at the time."

"Nice?"

"Well, I only made her cry the once." Then he got tired of explaining himself (that, or he still couldn't help being a little jealous of Francy) because he headed down the steps, calling, "Pull her hair."

The kids didn't listen, thankfully. Benji had already abandoned ship and was heading for his brother, who picked him easily, so they could talk eye to eye.

"Where's Brian?" Tommy demanded, but then he was pushing past me into his house. I hoped that he and my sister had finished sucking face by now because the twins weren't going to stop for anything.

"They're back!" Francy called to the woods. It took her a second to pick herself off the ground and dust the mud off her clothes.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Yeah." I believed her; she loved playing with the twins. Leaving was never because she didn't love her brothers. "Shouldn't I be asking you that? How'd the vampire killing go?"

"The vampires are dead, so I think it was a success."

We turned together when the other Uleys erupted from the woods. To my surprise Kara, flushed from the cool air, was following after them.

"How'd you get her to come?" Not only was she here, but she was hanging out with the Uley boys, who were far scarier than Will, in my opinion. Sure, they always said please and thank you but it was about impossible to get them to shut up.

"I asked. That's usually all you have to do. Don't be too long out here," she warned. "I don't want to watch Brian try to explain to my younger brothers what William's snide comment means."

I laughed as I bounded down the stairs, greeting the boys as I passed. I caught Kara in the middle of the yard, her arms wrapped tightly around my neck. Yeah, that was my girl.

"So you missed me?"

"You know I did."

And then I got to kiss her, which was the perfect victory celebration, if I do say so myself.

Will had brought Benji to the food, so I threw an arm around Kara's shoulders and led her inside. "You're really, really sweaty," she said. She didn't sound nearly as excited about it as Dinah had, either.

"Sneaking across the border is hard work."

"Crossing the 49th parallel can't be that hard." Dinah finished sucking face with Brian long enough to annoy me. So thoughtful.

Well, she had managed all this, so she couldn't have been all bad.

The plates were set, the pizza was coming, the radio was on and everyone was around. What more could you want? The Uleys were still trying to hug Brian all at once, so he had to let go of Di's hand, Kara got dragged into a conversation with Francy (hey, as long as she stayed on my lap, she could talk to the forks for all I cared), Will and Benji were arm-wrestling (Benji was obviously winning) and everyone was laughing.

At least, they were laughing until Brian hugged Baxter. "You feeling all right?"

"Fine," his brother shrugged, but Francy was already coming over, gently touching his forehead. For a second. Then she moved her hand away like it had been burnt.

"You're burning up."

I caught Brian's eye. What the fuck had we done?

"I have to deal with two of them?" Will complained. "This isn't _fair_."

"Are you sure this means he's going to..."

None of us dared answer Francy's question. I started listing off symptoms, irritability and fever being the main ones, but increased appetite and growth spurt being some of the others. Now that we were paying attention, he did look taller. Just a little bit, but enough that we couldn't make ourselves say anything to Francy.

"Does this mean I get to be a werewolf too?" Benji asked hopefully.

"Over my dead body," Will muttered.

I wanted to hit him because that was a little too close to what might actually have to happen. Benji was still young, but if someone died…who knew what would happen then? Who knew what was happening now? No, we knew. The question was why hadn't we realized the only reason so few of us had phased was because the vampires had stayed away from us for so long?

"Think Dad will be mad?" Baxter asked Brian.

"I'm sure you'll do a great job," Brian assured him.

"Can't be any less mature than the rest of them," Dinah said. True.

"Well, since Baxter's also going to be a werewolf—" Francy stuttered over the word, but managed to keep going "—why don't we all sit and please explain to those of us who don't turn into mythical creatures what's going to happen."

"He's going get pissy," Dinah said.

"And bigger," Brian said. "Then he'll phase and have to run patrols with us."

"He'll get to miss school," Will offered. His senior year. Shit. No one else seemed eager for that to happen. Not to one more kid; we'd given enough.

So I reminded Will: "You barely went your last year and they still passed you. If he shows up for tests the first couple of months, until he gets control…"

"Plus, no one does anything interesting in September, anyways," Dinah said.

All of a sudden, Baxter had a fleet of tutors. Brian would help with the sciences, Francy the humanities, Will with math, until Baxter could go back. Dinah and I would help him work on controlling his temper (I could teach him how to accept that being a wolf was natural; Dinah could try to provoke him until he learned not to react). We'd get him back into school as fast as we could.

We'd give him fewer patrols; the three of us and the old timers could deal with it. We wouldn't keep him out of everything, of course. I was planning to stay in contact with Nessie and her psychic aunt, which meant we needed to get him in fighting shape. It didn't seem right, sitting around if there were vampires nearby that could kill people. Even Baxter, whose world was just about to implode, agreed with me. He wasn't even a wolf yet, but he agreed (so did the girls, the rest of the Uley boys, even little Benji). We would help, even if it meant more of us would phase. We'd protect each other as best we could, but then we'd protect other people too. It would be worth it.

The doorbell rang. The pizza was here—the discussion paused. A werewolf didn't like to be kept from his food. Dinah was wondering if putting us on leashes was legal when the Uley boys descended on the table. Fortunately, Francy could keep her brothers back with just a look.

"We should wait for Judith and Bertrand," she reminded us all.

"Newest member of our pack?" I addressed Baxter. "Leaving my kid sister alone with a guy is the fastest way to find yourself at the receiving end of punishments you can't even begin to imagine."

"Basically, Levi scowls a lot," Brian said, wrapping his arms around Dinah's shoulder.

"I'll get them," Will said, standing up. Did he really have to like Bertie? Judy was his cousin. She was a poor defenceless little girl and he shouldn't be allowed to take advantage of her.

"You're not cursing out loud," Kara said.

"Well, today, I'm giving the guy a break," I muttered.

"How come killing things always puts you in a better mood?" Kara wondered as she laid her head on my shoulder.

"Hey, even Brian likes it."

"Though I'm not quite so obvious about it," he protested.

Dinah gave him a look that made me want to puke, but my gagging set everyone off, even the kids who were too young to know why Di should never be allowed to look at Brian like that in public. We could always laugh and I was kind of proud of us for it.

We figured Will would be quick because of the food. It did seem like he was racing back, dragging Judy and Bertie by the wrists, the two of them scrambling to keep up with him. Good. I guess he was finally on my side. I just hoped whatever had convinced him wasn't too…I shivered just thinking about it.

Then I started planning how I was going to kill Bertrand Call.

"They were arguing," Will said as he came back through the door, practically throwing the kids inside in front of him. The way he said it…the expression on his face…I gently pushed Kara off of me and went to take my sister's hand.

Brain was going to Bertie. It only took us a second to know for sure. They were on fire, too.

"No one else can phase," Dinah said, scowling at Artie, the twins and Benji.

"They'll outnumber us then," Francy agreed.

"I thought you said I couldn't," Judy said, gazing up at me. My kid sister…did it really have to be my kid sister? Not Judy. They could take all the Uleys, the rest of La Push for all I cared, but Judy? Will and I shared a quiet look of regret. But we couldn't go back now and I still refused to be sorry for it.

"Looks like you can, Jubes."

And she grinned up at me. Bertie was looking lost and confused as Will started explaining things, Brian was still trying to look brave for his brother, but Judy was grinning like a loon.

"Awesome."

* * *

You know who didn't think it was quite so awesome?

My parents.

When my parents came back they already knew everything, seeing as they were mindreaders and everything, but they still seemed shocked.

The idea that my little sister was going to be joining the pack did not go over well. Still, it was hard to deny. She had started to get pissy and Judith was a lot of things (pure evil) but pissy wasn't one of them.

"We're never leaving you alone again," my mother declared.

"I'm sorry I took the pack out." I regretted the consequences, but I can't say I was really all that sorry about it either. We saved people. Saved lots of people, because vampires didn't just kill a person a year. They killed and now they couldn't anymore. Because of us. I was sorry my little sister had to suffer because of it, but I think I might still do it again. Being a werewolf was kind of awesome. Saving people was even better.

I'd do it again.

"It was your call," my father said. If I looked for it, if I was an annoying punk kid, I could have heard condemnation in his voice. But it would have been all in my head. Dad meant it. It was the way it worked. It had been my call; what's done was done.

"We're the one's who are sorry."

It was probably a little rude to laugh in my mother's face.

Whatever.

"What did you do? You gave us superpowers."

Mom didn't look convinced; I really did laugh in her face.

"Hey," I said, "Maybe it's just because I'm too damn stubborn to think any other way, but whatever being a werewolf means, I wouldn't change it for anything. Judy'll think the same way. Hell, she's excited to join the family business."

Mom finally calmed down. When Dad started laughing (of course he started laughing), she even joined in. When they stopped, she was smiling.

"Jake, I think we're being muscled out by our own children."

"I'm kind of looking forward to retiring. I might actually get to take a vacation one of these years."

"Nah. Someone still has to run La Push."

I said: "Until Dinah figures out how to do that."

"True," Dad said. "Well, Leah, how do you like feeling obsolete?"

"I could get used to it."

They were gazing into each other's eyes so I stared at the floor, then at the wall, and then just got pissed.

"Okay, so I'm going to go. I've got people waiting for me."

When I was opening the door my father stopped me, calling my name in the tone of voice that was impossible to resist, even if he was going to stop being the Alpha one of these days.

"You'll do all right, kid," he said.

"More than all right."

But I didn't need Mom to interpret for him anymore.

"Can't do worse than you did."

My father and I laughed together and then I headed out to join my pack.

The End

* * *

A/N: So...yes, the story is ending there. Because I'm internet-less all of June and because year one is over. I'm trying to decide on continuing the next year or jumping ahead a few years...I don't know where I want to continue writing from, but I am going to continue. I'm not finished with these characters yet. It's going to be called 'Chest Pains' and that's about all I've got. And now I've got a plane to catch. Bye!


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